Rejecting cosmic background for exclusive charged current quasi elastic neutrino interaction studies with Liquid Argon TPCs; a case study with the MicroBooNE detector

C Adams,W Seligman,K Mistry,M Murphy,E.-C Huang,A Bhat,J I Crespo-Anadón,D Caratelli,J Sinclair,X Luo,O Hen,M Kirby,T Bolton,L Escudero Sanchez,S R Soleti,R Carr,J Anthony,R S Fitzpatrick,A Blake,V Pandey,X Ji,S Tufanli,S Söldner-Rembold,T Strauss,L E Yates,T Usher,J Nowak,C James,C Mariani,P Spentzouris,B Kirby,A Papadopoulou,X Qian,C Zhang,W Tang,R Grosso,J Joshi,M Weber,Y.-T Tsai,J Marshall,K Terao,A Ereditato,Y Chen,A Lister,C Barnes,K Duffy,G Barr,M Mooney,A Ashkenazi,J Jan De Vries,L Jiang,J Moon,C D Moore,R A Johnson,E L Snider,D Cianci,R T Thornton,P Hamilton,M Auger,J M Conrad,J St John,D Devitt ,E Gramellini,E Piasetzky,P Nienaber,J Zennamo,V Meddage,A Mastbaum,W Van De Pontseele,D Lorca,J Spitz,A Dı́az ,R Murrells,M Luethi,H Greenlee,J Hewes,A C Smith ,J Martín-Albo ,V Genty,A P Furmanski,W Ketchum,M A Thomson ,L Cooper-Troendle,A Marchionni,H Wei,M H Shaevitz,A Mogan,N Tagg,M Bass,A Schukraft,A.a Fadeeva ,J Asaadi,S Balasubramanian,T Yang,Y.-J Jwa,C Rudolf Von Rohr,Y Li,S Wolbers,B Russell,K Wierman,D A Martínez Caicedo ,A Rafique,G Karagiorgi,R Guénette ,B R Littlejohn,I Lepetic,P Guzowski,E Church,D Goeldi,G Scanavini,G B Cerati ,K Sutton,Gabriel Collin ,Colton Hill ,O Palamara,R Castillo Fernández ,D Franco,D A Wickremasinghe,M Soderberg,Kolahal Bhattacharya ,I Caro Terrazas,S F Pate,L Camilleri,G A Horton-Smith,D Schmitz ,B T Fleming,I Kreslo,J Mousseau,A M Szelc,G Yarbrough,M Ross-Lonergan,S Lockwitz,Z Williams,R An,Justin J Evans ,S Gollapinni,T Mettler,S Sword-Fehlberg,M Bishai,W C Louis,D García-Gámez ,V Papavassiliou,F Cavanna,O Goodwin,T Wongjirad,A Hackenburg,D Naples,M R Convery ,J Esquivel,Lynn Rochester ,G Pulliam,B Lundberg,S Marcocci,B Viren,M Alrashed,M Del Tutto,J L Raaf,T Kobilarcik,B Eberly,R Sharankova,M Toups,H Jöstlein ,Ž Pavlović ,B Baller,F Bay,Lu Ren ,A Hourlier,R G Van De Water,K Woodruff,E Cohen ,G P Zeller,S A Dytman ,D Porzio,V Paolone

doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-019-7184-7

Abstract

Cosmic ray (CR) interactions can be a challenging source of background for neutrino oscillation and cross-section measurements in surface detectors. We present methods for CR rejection in measurements of charged-current quasielastic-like (CCQE-like) neutrino interactions, with a muon and a proton in the final state, measured using liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). Using a sample of cosmic data collected with the MicroBooNE detector, mixed with simulated neutrino scattering events, a set of event selection criteria is developed that produces an event sample with minimal contribution from CR background. Depending on the selection criteria used a purity between 50 and 80% can be achieved with a signal selection efficiency between 50 and 25%, with higher purity coming at the expense of lower efficiency. While using a specific dataset and selection criteria values optimized for the MicroBooNE detector, the concepts presented here are generic and can be adapted for various studies of exclusive nu _{mu } CCQE interactions in LArTPCs.

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