Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: Measurements of Pion and Muon Nuclear Capture at Rest on Argon in the LArIAT Experiment

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6]; ORCiD logo [7]; ORCiD logo [8];  [2]; ORCiD logo [6]; ORCiD logo [1];  [9];  [2];  [10]; ORCiD logo [2] more »;  [6];  [11];  [2];  [12];  [2] « less
  1. Illinois Institute of Technology
  2. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
  3. University of Texas at Arlington
  4. Universidade Federal de Goiás
  5. Yale University
  6. University of Chicago
  7. Boston University
  8. Universidade Estadual de Campinas
  9. University of California
  10. Universidade Federal do ABC
  11. Syracuse University
  12. University of Edinburgh
+ Show Author Affiliations

We report the measurement of the final-state products of negative pion and muon nuclear capture at rest on argon by the LArIAT experiment at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility. We measure a population of isolated MeV-scale energy depositions, or blips, in 296 LArIAT events containing tracks from stopping low-momentum pions and muons. The average numbers of visible blips are measured to be 0.74 ± 0.19 and 1.86 ± 0.17 near muon and pion track endpoints, respectively. The 3.6⁢𝜎 statistically significant difference in blip content between muons and pions provides the first demonstration of a new method of pion-muon discrimination in neutrino liquid argon time projection chamber experiments. LArIAT Monte Carlo simulations predict substantially higher average blip counts for negative muon (1.22 ± 0.08) and pion (2.34 ± 0.09) nuclear captures. We attribute this difference to geant4’s inaccurate simulation of the nuclear capture process.

Research Organization:
Boston Univ., MA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
89243024CSC000002; AC02-07CH11359; SC0015628
OSTI ID:
2545100
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-PUB--24-0455-PPD
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 13 Vol. 134; ISSN 1079-7114; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (49)

Dark tridents at off-axis liquid argon neutrino detectors journal January 2019
Searching for physics beyond the Standard Model in an off-axis DUNE near detector journal January 2022
Geant4—a simulation toolkit
  • Agostinelli, S.; Allison, J.; Amako, K.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 506, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-9002(03)01368-8
journal July 2003
The nuclear physics of muon capture journal November 2001
Simulating low-energy neutrino interactions with MARLEY journal December 2021
The FLUKA Code: Developments and Challenges for High Energy and Medical Applications journal June 2014
The magnetized steel and scintillator calorimeters of the MINOS experiment
  • Michael, D. G.; Adamson, P.; Alexopoulos, T.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 596, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2008.08.003
journal November 2008
The GENIE neutrino Monte Carlo generator
  • Andreopoulos, C.; Bell, A.; Bhattacharya, D.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 614, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2009.12.009
journal February 2010
NuWro: the Wrocław Monte Carlo Generator of Neutrino Interactions journal August 2012
Transport-theoretical description of nuclear reactions journal March 2012
The present and future status of heavy neutral leptons journal January 2023
Low-energy physics in neutrino LArTPCs journal January 2023
Large low background kTon-scale liquid argon time projection chambers journal May 2023
LArSoft: toolkit for simulation, reconstruction and analysis of liquid argon TPC neutrino detectors journal October 2017
Liquid argon TPC signal formation, signal processing and reconstruction techniques journal July 2017
Michel electron reconstruction using cosmic-ray data from the MicroBooNE LArTPC journal September 2017
The Liquid Argon In A Testbeam (LArIAT) experiment journal April 2020
Observation of radon mitigation in MicroBooNE by a liquid argon filtration system journal November 2022
Microscopic theories of neutrino- 12 C reactions journal May 2000
Search for heavy neutrinos with the T2K near detector ND280 journal September 2019
Measurement of ν ¯ μ charged-current single π − production on hydrocarbon in the few-GeV region using MINERvA journal September 2019
Calorimetry for low-energy electrons using charge and light in liquid argon journal January 2020
Search for heavy neutral leptons decaying into muon-pion pairs in the MicroBooNE detector journal March 2020
Benefits of MeV-scale reconstruction capabilities in large liquid argon time projection chambers journal November 2020
T2K measurements of muon neutrino and antineutrino disappearance using 3.13 × 10 21 protons on target journal January 2021
Enhanced low-energy supernova burst detection in large liquid argon time projection chambers enabled by Q-Pix journal August 2022
Measurement of the π− -Ar total hadronic cross section at the LArIAT experiment journal September 2022
Search for long-lived heavy neutral leptons and Higgs portal scalars decaying in the MicroBooNE detector journal November 2022
Impact of cross-section uncertainties on supernova neutrino spectral parameter fitting in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment journal June 2023
Measurements of the νμ and ν¯μ -induced coherent charged pion production cross sections on C12 by the T2K experiment journal November 2023
Measurement of ambient radon progeny decay rates and energy spectra in liquid argon using the MicroBooNE detector journal March 2024
Measurement of neutrino-induced charged-current charged pion production cross sections on mineral oil at E ν ∼ 1     GeV journal March 2011
First measurement of the muon neutrino charged current single pion production cross section on water with the T2K near detector journal January 2017
Demonstration of MeV-scale physics in liquid argon time projection chambers using ArgoNeuT journal January 2019
Measurement of Neutrino and Antineutrino Oscillations Using Beam and Atmospheric Data in MINOS journal June 2013
Neutrino Trident Production: A Powerful Probe of New Physics with Neutrino Beams journal August 2014
First Measurement of Neutrino and Antineutrino Coherent Charged Pion Production on Argon journal December 2014
Measurement of Coherent Production of π ± in Neutrino and Antineutrino Beams on Carbon from E ν of 1.5 to 20 GeV journal December 2014
Publisher’s Note: First Measurement of Neutrino and Antineutrino Coherent Charged Pion Production on Argon [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113 , 261801 (2014)] journal January 2015
Measurement of Coherent π + Production in Low Energy Neutrino-Carbon Scattering journal November 2016
DUNE as the Next-Generation Solar Neutrino Experiment journal September 2019
First measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters using neutrinos and antineutrinos by NOvA journal October 2019
Improved Limits on Millicharged Particles Using the ArgoNeuT Experiment at Fermilab journal April 2020
Simultaneous Measurement of Muon Neutrino νμ Charged-Current Single π+ Production in CH, C, H2O , Fe, and Pb Targets in MINERvA journal July 2023
Supernova neutrino burst detection with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment: DUNE Collaboration journal May 2021
Measurement of the μ decay spectrum with the ICARUS liquid Argon TPC journal March 2004
The NEUT neutrino interaction simulation program library journal October 2021
Precise 3D Track Reconstruction Algorithm for the ICARUS T600 Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber Detector journal January 2013
Muon capture in Ar. The muon lifetime and yields of Cl isotopes journal June 2008

Similar Records

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
Monte Carlo methods
muons
neutrinos
particle data analysis