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Title: Measurements of Pion and Muon Nuclear Capture at Rest on Argon in the LArIAT Experiment
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 4’s inaccurate simulation of the nuclear capture process.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2209601
PAR ID:
10649242
Author(s) / Creator(s):
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Corporate Creator(s):
Publisher / Repository:
APS
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Physical Review Letters
Volume:
134
Issue:
13
ISSN:
0031-9007
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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