MicroBooNE low-energy excess signal prediction from unfolding MiniBooNE Monte-Carlo and data

UNSPECIFIED (2018) MicroBooNE low-energy excess signal prediction from unfolding MiniBooNE Monte-Carlo and data. Other. UNSPECIFIED.

Abstract

One of the primary goals of MicroBooNE is to address the existence and underlying source of the MiniBooNE observed Low Energy Excess (LEE). The MiniBooNE LEE is the observation of an anomalous excess of νe charged current quasi-elastic-like events in the Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermilab. The true origin of those events could be attributed to either single electrons or single photons produced in the MiniBooNE Cherenkov detector, as the experiment lacked the ability to distinguish between the two. Using the ability of liquid argon time projection chambers to perform electron/photon separation, MicroBooNE aims to search for this excess in two exclusive channels: single photon and single electron. However before addressing either hypothesis the MiniBooNE LEE must be explicitly modeled in MicroBooNE. This requires that the MiniBooNE detector response, event reconstruction, selection and their collective effects be removed before mapping the observable excess to MicroBooNE. This note describes this “unfolding process,” and provides the end results of the true unfolded distributions for two well motivated LEE hypotheses: (a) electrons from an increased intrinsic νe charged current event rate and (b) single photons due to neutrino neutral current ∆ production with subsequent radiative decay.