The MicroBooNE experiment is an 85 tonne active mass liquid argon time projection chamber neutrino detector exposed to the on-axis Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermilab. One of MicroBooNE’s physics goals is the precise measurement of neutrino interactions on argon in the 1 GeV energy regime. Building on the capabilities of the MicroBooNE detector, this analysis identifies mesons, a key signature for the study of strange particle production in neutrino interactions. This measurement is furthermore valuable for background estimation for future nucleon decay searches and for improved reconstruction and particle identification capabilities in experiments such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. In this Letter, we present the first-ever measurement of a flux-integrated cross section for charged-current muon neutrino induced production on argon nuclei, determined to be based on an analysis of protons on target. This result was found to be consistent with model predictions from different neutrino event generators within the reported uncertainties.
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This content will become publicly available on May 1, 2026
First observation of antiproton annihilation at rest on argon in the LArIAT experiment
We report the first observation and measurement of antiproton annihilation at rest on argon track and shower multiplicities and particle identification conducted with the LArIAT experiment. Stopping antiprotons from the Fermilab Test Beam Facility’s charged particle test beam are identified using beamline instrumentation and LArIAT’s liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC). The charged particle multiplicity from the annihilation vertex is manually evaluated via hand scanning, yielding a mean of tracks and a standard deviation of 1.3 tracks, consistent with a semiautomated reconstruction resulting in tracks and a standard deviation of 1.2 tracks. Both methods are consistent with Monte Carlo simulations within statistical uncertainty. The shower multiplicities and particle identification for outgoing tracks are also consistent with eant4 model predictions. These results, obtained from a low-statistics sample, provide a foundation for higher-statistics studies in larger LArTPCs, which could refine modeling of intranuclear annihilation on argon and inform scenarios such as neutron-antineutron oscillations.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2209601
- PAR ID:
- 10649243
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- APS
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review D
- Volume:
- 111
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2470-0010
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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