W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects Fall 2016 An improved measurement of the Muon Neutrino charged current Quasi-Elastic cross-section on Hydrocarbon at Minerva Dun Zhang College of William and Mary - Arts & Sciences, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Physics Commons Recommended Citation Zhang, Dun, "An improved measurement of the Muon Neutrino charged current Quasi-Elastic cross- section on Hydrocarbon at Minerva" (2016). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1499450044. http://doi.org/10.21220/S2Q077 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Improved Measurement of the Muon Neutrino Charged Current Quasi-Elastic Cross-Section on Hydrocarbon at MINERνA Dun Zhang Lianyungang, Jiangsu, China Master of Science, College of William & Mary, 2009 Bachelor of Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 2007 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of The College of William & Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Physics College of William & Mary May 2017 c 2017 Dun Zhang All rights reserved. ABSTRACT Long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments measure the flavor and energy of neutrinos to determine the neutrino mass spectrum and mixing parameters (the PMNS matrix). The flavor of a neutrino is determined by identifying the lepton in the final state of a charged current (CC) interaction. The energy is most generally determined by summing the energy of the lepton and hadronic recoil system. At energies below the pion production threshold, the dominant reaction is quasi-elastic (QE) scattering — ν n l−p. This process is advantageous because the neutrino energy can be l → determined from knowledge of the incoming neutrino’s angle, and the energy and angle of the outgoing lepton. At energies above the pion production threshold QE scattering gradually becomes less important but serves as a standard candle for oscillation experiments, at least in principle. In practice, oscillation experiments are made of heavy nuclei (C, Fe, Ar) so the QE process occurs on nucleons that are embedded in the nuclear environment. Predictions of the QE cross-section suffer from significant uncertainties due to our understanding of that nuclear environment and the way it is probed by the weak interaction. This thesis improves knowledge of the CCQE process by presenting measurements of the differential cross-section (dσ/dQ2) for scattering on hydrocarbon. The data comes from MINERνA, a dedicated neutrino-scattering experiment based at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). Neutrinos are provided to the experiment by the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) neutrino beam. The data used in this thesis were taken between March 2010 and April 2012 in the “low energy” beam configuration that has previously been used to measure the CCQE cross-section [1]. The measurement technique has been improved in this thesis in a few ways. First, the inelastic background to CCQE was reduced by identifying the “Michel electron” produced by the π+ µ+ e+ decay chain. Additionally an updated neutrino flux was used to extract → → the cross-section and estimates for some sources of systematic uncertainty have been improved. The measured cross-section is compared to several theoretical models and the effect that the signal definition (“CCQE” vs “CCQE-like”) has on the measurement is also explored. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments..................................... vi Dedication......................................... vii ListofTables....................................... viii ListofFigures ...................................... xi CHAPTER 1 1 Introduction.................................... 2 1.1 TheStandardModel ............................ 3 1.1.1 FundamentalParticles . 4 1.1.2 FundamentalInteractions . 5 1.2 NeutrinoOscillations ............................ 6 1.3 NeutrinoQuasi-ElasticScattering . ... 10 1.3.1 IntroductiontoElasticScattering . .. 11 1.3.2 Neutrino Charged Current Quasi-Elastic Scattering . ...... 13 1.4 NuclearEffects ............................... 20 1.5 Motivation to Remeasure the Cross-section . ..... 24 2 The NuMI Beamline and The MINERνADetector............... 25 2.1 TheNuMIBeamline ............................ 25 2.1.1 TheProtonBeam.......................... 26 2.1.2 TheNeutrinoBeam......................... 27 2.2 The MINERνADetector .......................... 33 2.2.1 InnerDetector............................ 36 i 2.2.2 OuterDetector ........................... 40 2.2.3 UpstreamRegion .......................... 41 2.2.4 TheScintillatorStrips . 42 2.2.5 ThePhotomultiplierTubes. 43 2.2.6 Readout Electronics and the Data Acquisition System . .... 43 2.2.7 MINOSDetector .......................... 45 3 Calibration and Reconstruction in MINERνA ................. 48 3.1 Calibration.................................. 49 3.1.1 Ex situ Calibration ......................... 51 3.1.2 In situ Calibration......................... 52 3.2 Reconstruction ............................... 60 3.2.1 TimeSliceReconstruction. 60 3.2.2 ClusterFormation. 62 3.2.3 TrackFormation .......................... 63 3.2.4 VertexFitting............................ 66 3.2.5 Track-BasedEventBuilding . 67 3.2.6 MuonReconstruction. 69 3.2.7 RecoilSystemReconstruction . 70 4 Simulation..................................... 73 4.1 BeamSimulation .............................. 73 4.2 NeutrinoInteractionsSimulation. ... 78 4.2.1 Cross-sectionModels . 78 4.2.2 NuclearMediumModeling . 82 4.2.3 FinalStateInteractions. 83 4.3 SimulatingEventsintheDetector . .. 84 ii 5 MuonTagging................................... 86 5.1 MuonandMichelElectron . 86 5.1.1 Muons in the MINERνADetector................. 91 5.1.2 MichelElectronProperties . 93 5.2 MichelTool.................................. 95 5.2.1 SearchStage............................. 95 5.2.2 ReconstructionStage . 103 5.2.3 Characterizing the MichelTool UsingStoppingMuons . 105 5.3 ToolPerformanceMonitoring . 116 5.3.1 Characterizing Rock Muon Samples Used in the Study . 117 5.3.2 EfficiencyandPurity . 123 5.3.3 Uncertainty ............................. 124 5.3.4 Tagging Probability and Efficiency Stability Check . 125 5.3.5 Discussion on the Efficiency of the MichelTool . 136 5.4 MichelElectronsBackgroundStudy . 137 5.4.1 Methodology ............................ 137 5.4.2 MisidentificationRateandUncertainty . 141 5.4.3 Cleaning Selections on Michel Electrons. 141 6 Analysis ...................................... 147 6.1 AnalysisOverview.............................. 147 6.2 EventCandidatesSelection. 148 6.2.1 MuonSelection ........................... 148 6.2.2 CCQE-likeSelection . 149 6.2.3 SelectedCCQE-likeEventCandidates. 154 6.3 Cross-SectionExtraction . 158 iii 6.3.1 BackgroundSubtraction . 160 6.3.2 BinMigrationandUnfolding. 167 6.3.3 EfficiencyandAcceptanceCorrections . 169 6.3.4 Normalization ............................ 171 6.3.5 Final Differential Cross-section Results of CCQE-like Analysis . 172 6.3.6 Comparing to the Previous Published Result . 174 6.3.7 CCQE/CCQE-like Analyses Using the New Flux. 180 6.4 SystematicUncertainties . 187 6.4.1 NeutrinoFlux............................ 189 6.4.2 EventGeneratorUncertainties . 192 6.4.3 DetectorResponseUncertainties. 201 6.4.4 OtherSystematicUncertainties . 212 6.5 SystematicErrorsSummary . 215 6.5.1 SystematicErrorsSummaryPlots . 215 6.5.2 SystematicErrorSummaryTables. 231 7 Conclusions .................................... 240 7.1 Model Comparisons of the Differential Cross-sections . ........ 240 7.2 Conclusions ................................. 246 APPENDIX A AdditionalPlotsintheCCQEAnalysis. 248 A.1 Cross-sectionExtraction . 248 A.1.1 BackgroundSubtraction . 249 A.1.2 BinMigrationandUnfolding. 255 A.1.3 EfficiencyandAcceptanceCorrections . 256 A.2 SystematicEstimation . 258 A.2.1 SummaryofTotalErrors. 258 iv A.2.2 GroupofFlux............................ 259 A.2.3 GroupofPrimaryInteraction . 260 A.2.4 GroupofHadronInteraction. 261 A.2.5 GroupofMuonReconstruction . 262 A.2.6 GroupofRecoilReconstruction . 263 A.2.7 GroupofOtherErrors . 264 A.2.8 SystematicErrorsTables . 265 APPENDIX B The MichelTool Pseudo-code ............................ 270 Bibliography ....................................... 273 Vita ............................................ 279 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Michael Kordosky, for his guidance through more than seven years of research. Without his professional great help and patience, I could not reach this far. I also want to express appreciation to those who have helped me and contributed to my research including Laura Fields, Arturo Fiorentini, and Jyotsna Osta. In particular, I must thank Minerba Betancourt, who is extremely patient and willing to help all the time. To my family, Dad, Mom, my sister Yu, my niece Jingyuan, and my nephew Yihan, I owe them many thanks for all of their love and support. Their words make me feel warm and strong. vi I present this thesis in honor of my parents. vii LIST OF TABLES 1.1 A list of the three generations of fundamental fermions and their properties. Only limits exist on the masses of neutrinos [3]. ..... 4 1.2 A list of the fundamental