Constraint of Systematic Uncertainties in an Electron Neutrino Search Using Muon Neutrinos at MicroBooNE
- Lancaster U.
MicroBooNE is a liquid argon time projection chamber which has been running in the Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermilab since 2015. The primary goal of MicroBooNE is investigation of the excess of electromagnetic events observed by the MiniBooNE collaboration. Due to limitations of the Cherenkov-based particle identification of MiniBooNE, this excess could be interpreted as either photon-like or electron-like. A photon-like excess would indicate that there are processes which are not well understood which could act as a background in neutrino oscillation measurements, while an electron-like excess could indicate the presence of sterile neutrinos, the existence of which is one of the most hotly debated questions in the field. This work will outline the MicroBooNE strategy for investigation of this \textit{low-energy excess}, with particular attention given to the role of the muon neutrino sideband which is used as an important constraint on systematic uncertainties. A procedure h as been developed in order to apply this constraint to an electron neutrino dataset, and it has been shown that the constraint results in an improvement to the sensitivity. In order to perform this constraint, an exclusive-state $$\nu_{\mu}$$ CC selection has been developed, which results in 804 selected events from on-beam data. The ratio of the data with respect to simulation is $$R=0.78 \pm 0.04 \textrm{ (stat.)} \pm 0.12 \textrm{ (syst.)}$$. In addition, this thesis presents a first measurement of the longitudinal ionisation electron diffusion coefficient from the MicroBooNE data, which is determined to be $$3.73^{+0.70}_{-0.68}$$ cm$^2$/s.
- 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:
- 1570192
- Report Number(s):
- FERMILAB-THESIS-2019-11; oai:inspirehep.net:1758548
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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