Electromagnetic Shower from Cosmic Muons in NOvA Detector
- Indian Inst. Tech., Guwahati
NO$$\nu$$A (NuMI Off-Axis $$\nu_e$$ Appearance) experiment is a neutrino $$\nu_\mu \rightarrow \nu_e$$ oscillation experiment with a baseline of 810 km. The signature for a $$\nu_\mu \rightarrow \nu_e$$ oscillation in the far detector is the production of an electromagnetic (EM) shower due to the charge current (CC) interaction of $$\nu_e$$ with the detector material. Cosmic muon induced electromagnetic showers can serve as a source of EM shower sample that can be used as a data-driven method for validating the EM shower modelling and EM shower identification algorithms at NO$$\nu$$A. The work reported in the thesis is the first ever implementation of cosmic muon induced EM shower for such a purpose in the NO$$\nu$$A experiment. We extracted EM shower sample from two sources - muon undergoing bremsstrahlung (Brem) and muon decay in flight to electron (DiF). Brem sample, extracted from cosmic muon, turns out to be a very useful data-driven method for testing EM shower modelling and the part icle identification (PID) algorithms for the detection of $$\nu_e$$-CC interactions. A new muon removal (MR) technique is developed and applied to remove the muon hits inside the bremsstrahlung shower. However, a complete removal of the muon energy in the event is not possible with high efficiency. DiF induced EM shower, on the other hand, is exactly similar to $$\nu_e$$-CC EM shower because DiF is a pure electron initiated EM shower. Therefore, DiF EM shower, once extracted, mimicks the shower of a $$\nu_e$$-CC interaction event. We present the extraction methods for both brem and DiF events in MC and cosmic data in far and near detector of NO$$\nu$$A and its use in data driven validation of $$\nu_e$$ EM shower modelling and $$\nu_e$$ signal selection efficiency across the detector. A systematic uncertainty is also assigned on $$\nu_e$$ appearance signal selection based on this study to take into account the difference in EM shower modelling in data and MC.
- Research Organization:
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359
- OSTI ID:
- 1439282
- Report Number(s):
- FERMILAB-THESIS-2018-09; 1674855
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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