Measurement of the flux-averaged inclusive charged-current electron neutrino and antineutrino cross section on argon using the NuMI beam and the MicroBooNE detector

Journal Article · Wed Sep 08 00:00:00 EDT 2021 · Physical Review D

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.052002· OSTI ID:1819243

Abratenko, P.; Alrashed, M.; An, R.; Anthony, J.; Asaadi, J.; Ashkenazi, A.; Balasubramanian, S.; Baller, B.; Barnes, C.; Barr, G.; Basque, V.; Bathe-Peters, L.; Benevides Rodrigues, O.; Berkman, S.; Bhanderi, A.; Bhat, A.; Bishai, M.; Blake, A.; Bolton, T.; Camilleri, L. ; Caratelli, D.; Caro Terrazas, I.; Castillo Fernandez, R.; Cavanna, F.; Cerati, G.; Chen, Y.; Church, E.; Cianci, D.; Conrad, J. M.; Convery, M.; Cooper-Troendle, L.; Crespo-Anadón, J. I.; Del Tutto, M.; Dennis, S. R.; Devitt, A.; Diurba, R.; Domine, L.; Dorrill, R.; Duffy, K.; Dytman, S.; Eberly, B.; Ereditato, A.; Escudero Sanchez, L.; Evans, J. J.; Fiorentini Aguirre, G. A.; Fitzpatrick, R. S.; Fleming, B. T.; Foppiani, N.; Franco, D.; Furmanski, A. P.; Garcia-Gamez, D.; Gardiner, S.; Ge, G.; Gollapinni, S.; Goodwin, O.; Gramellini, E.; Green, P.; Greenlee, H.; Gu, W.; Guenette, R.; Guzowski, P.; Hagaman, L.; Hall, E.; Hamilton, P.; Hen, O.; Hill, C.; Horton-Smith, G. A.; Hourlier, A.; Itay, R.; James, C.; Jan de Vries, J.; Ji, X.; Jiang, L.; Jo, J. H.; Johnson, R. A.; Jwa, Y. -J.; Kamp, N.; Kaneshige, N.; Karagiorgi, G.; Ketchum, W.; Kirby, B.; Kirby, M.; Kobilarcik, T.; Kreslo, I.; LaZur, R.; Lepetic, I.; Li, K.; Li, Y.; Littlejohn, B. R.; Lorca, D.; Louis, W. C.; Luo, X.; Marchionni, A.; Mariani, C.; Marsden, D.; Marshall, J.; Martin-Albo, J.; Martinez Caicedo, D. A.; Mason, K.; Mastbaum, A.; McConkey, N.; Meddage, V.; Mettler, T.; Miller, K.; Mills, J.; Mistry, K.; Mogan, A.; Mohayai, T.; Moon, J.; Mooney, M.; Moor, A. F.; Moore, C. D.; Mora Lepin, L.; Mousseau, J.; Murphy, M.; Naples, D.; Navrer-Agasson, A.; Neely, R. K.; Nienaber, P.; Nowak, J.; Palamara, O.; Paolone, V.; Papadopoulou, A.; Papavassiliou, V.; Pate, S. F.; Paudel, A.; Pavlovic, Z.; Piasetzky, E.; Ponce-Pinto, I. D.; Porzio, D.; Prince, S.; Qian, X.; Raaf, J. L.; Radeka, V.; Rafique, A.; Reggiani-Guzzo, M.; Ren, L.; Rochester, L.; Rodriguez Rondon, J.; Rogers, H. E.; Rosenberg, M.; Ross-Lonergan, M.; Russell, B.; Scanavini, G.; Schmitz, D. W.; Schukraft, A.; Seligman, W.; Shaevitz, M. H.; Sharankova, R.; Sinclair, J.; Smith, A.; Snider, E. L.; Soderberg, M.; Söldner-Rembold, S.; Soleti, S. R.; Spentzouris, P.; Spitz, J.; Stancari, M.; John, J. St.; Strauss, T.; Sutton, K.; Sword-Fehlberg, S.; Szelc, A. M. ; Tagg, N.; Tang, W.; Terao, K.; Thorpe, C.; Toups, M.; Tsai, Y. -T.; Uchida, M. A.; Usher, T.; Van De Pontseele, W.; Viren, B.; Weber, M.; Wei, H.; Williams, Z.; Wolbers, S.; Wongjirad, T.; Wospakrik, M.; Wu, W.; Yandel, E.; Yang, T.; Yarbrough, G.; Yates, L. E.; Zeller, G. P.; Zennamo, J.; Zhang, C.

We present a measurement of the combined $$ν_e$$ + $$\bar{ν}_e$$ flux-averaged charged-current inclusive cross section on argon using data from the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) at Fermilab. Using the off-axis flux from the NuMI beam, MicroBooNE has reconstructed 214 candidate $$ν_e$$ + $$\bar{ν}_e$$ interactions with an estimated exposure of 2.4 × 10²⁰ protons on target. Given the estimated purity of 38.6\%, this implies the observation of 80 $$ν_e$$ + $$\bar{ν}_e$$ events in argon, the largest such sample to date. The analysis includes the first demonstration of a fully automated application of a dE/dx-based particle discrimination technique of electron and photon induced showers in a LArTPC neutrino detector. We measure the $$ν_e$$ + $$\bar{ν}_e$$ flux-averaged charged-current total cross section to be 6.84 ± 1.51 (stat.) ± 2.33 (sys.) × 10^-39 cm²/ nucleon, for neutrino energies above 250 MeV and an average neutrino flux energy of 905 MeV when this threshold is applied. The measurement is sensitive to neutrino events where the final state electron momentum is above 48 MeV/c, includes the entire angular phase space of the electron, and is in agreement with the theoretical predictions from \texttt{GENIE} and \texttt{NuWro}. This measurement is also the first demonstration of electron neutrino reconstruction in a surface LArTPC in the presence of cosmic ray backgrounds, which will be a crucial task for surface experiments like those that comprise the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program at Fermilab.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
• Contributing Organization: MicroBooNE; MicroBooNE Collaboration
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359; SC0012704; SC0020262; SC0007859; SC0011702
• OSTI ID: 1819243
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1772819; OSTI ID: 1807922; OSTI ID: 1836519; OSTI ID: 1868018; OSTI ID: 1889901
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-PUB-20-672-ND; arXiv:2101.04228; BNL-221786-2021-JAAM; PRVDAQ; 052002
• Journal Information: Physical Review D, Journal Name: Physical Review D Vol. 104 Journal Issue: 5; ISSN 2470-0010
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS