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First study of neutrino angle reconstruction using quasielasticlike interactions in MicroBooNE

P. Abratenko38, D. Andrade Aldana14, L. Arellano22, J. Asaadi37, A. Ashkenazi36, S. Balasubramanian12, B. Baller12, A. Barnard29, G. Barr29 et al. (MicroBooNE Collaboration*)

G. Barr29, D. Barrow29, J. Barrow26, V. Basque12, J. Bateman15,22, O. Benevides Rodrigues14, S. Berkman25, A. Bhat7, M. Bhattacharya12, M. Bishai3, A. Blake19, B. Bogart24, T. Bolton18, M. B. Brunetti17,40, L. Camilleri10, D. Caratelli4, F. Cavanna12, G. Cerati12, A. Chappell40, Y. Chen33, J. M. Conrad23, M. Convery33, L. Cooper-Troendle30, J. I. Crespo-Anadón6, R. Cross40, M. Del Tutto12, S. R. Dennis5, P. Detje5, R. Diurba2, Z. Djurcic1, K. Duffy29, S. Dytman30, B. Eberly35, P. Englezos32, A. Ereditato7,12, J. J. Evans22, C. Fang4, W. Foreman14,20, B. T. Fleming7, D. Franco7, A. P. Furmanski26, F. Gao4, D. Garcia-Gamez13, S. Gardiner12, G. Ge10, S. Gollapinni20, E. Gramellini22, P. Green29, H. Greenlee12, L. Gu19, W. Gu3, R. Guenette22, P. Guzowski22, L. Hagaman7, M. D. Handley5, O. Hen23, C. Hilgenberg26, G. A. Horton-Smith18, A. Hussain18, B. Irwin26, M. S. Ismail30, C. James12, X. Ji27, J. H. Jo3, R. A. Johnson8, D. Kalra10, G. Karagiorgi10, W. Ketchum12, M. Kirby3, T. Kobilarcik12, N. Lane15,22, J.-Y. Li11, Y. Li3, K. Lin32, B. R. Littlejohn14, L. Liu12, W. C. Louis20, X. Luo4, P. Machado12, T. Mahmud19, C. Mariani39, J. Marshall40, N. Martinez18, D. A. Martinez Caicedo34, S. Martynenko3, A. Mastbaum32, I. Mawby19, N. McConkey31, L. Mellet25, J. Mendez21, J. Micallef23,38, A. Mogan9, T. Mohayai16, M. Mooney9, A. F. Moor5, C. D. Moore12, L. Mora Lepin22, M. M. Moudgalya22, S. Mulleriababu2, D. Naples30, A. Navrer-Agasson15, N. Nayak3, M. Nebot-Guinot11, C. Nguyen32, J. Nowak19, N. Oza10, O. Palamara12, N. Pallat26, V. Paolone30, A. Papadopoulou20, V. Papavassiliou28, H. B. Parkinson11, S. F. Pate28, N. Patel19, Z. Pavlovic12, E. Piasetzky36, K. Pletcher25, I. Pophale19, X. Qian3, J. L. Raaf12, V. Radeka3, A. Rafique1, M. Reggiani-Guzzo11, J. Rodriguez Rondon34, M. Rosenberg38, M. Ross-Lonergan20, I. Safa10, D. W. Schmitz7, A. Schukraft12, W. Seligman10, M. H. Shaevitz10, R. Sharankova12, J. Shi5, E. L. Snider12, S. Söldner-Rembold15, J. Spitz24, M. Stancari12, J. St. John12, T. Strauss12, A. M. Szelc11, N. Taniuchi5, K. Terao33, C. Thorpe22, D. Torbunov3, D. Totani4, M. Toups12, A. Trettin22, Y.-T. Tsai33, J. Tyler18, M. A. Uchida5, T. Usher33, B. Viren3, J. Wang27, M. Weber2, H. Wei21, A. J. White7, S. Wolbers12, T. Wongjirad38, K. Wresilo5, W. Wu30, E. Yandel4,20, T. Yang12, L. E. Yates12, H. W. Yu3, G. P. Zeller12, J. Zennamo12, and C. Zhang3 (MicroBooNE Collaboration*)

  • 1Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 2Universität Bern, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland
  • 3Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, New York 11973, USA
  • 4University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
  • 5University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom
  • 6Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid E-28040, Spain
  • 7University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
  • 8University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA
  • 9Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA
  • 10Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
  • 11University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, United Kingdom
  • 12Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
  • 13Universidad de Granada, Granada E-18071, Spain
  • 14Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, Illinois 60616, USA
  • 15Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
  • 16Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
  • 17The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA
  • 18Kansas State University (KSU), Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA
  • 19Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, United Kingdom
  • 20Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  • 21Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA
  • 22The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
  • 23Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 24University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
  • 25Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
  • 26University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
  • 27Nankai University, Nankai District, Tianjin 300071, China
  • 28New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA
  • 29University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom
  • 30University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
  • 31Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
  • 32Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA
  • 33SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
  • 34South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT), Rapid City, South Dakota 57701, USA
  • 35University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine 04104, USA
  • 36Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 69978
  • 37University of Texas, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA
  • 38Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA
  • 39Center for Neutrino Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
  • 40University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

  • *Contact author: microboone_info@fnal.gov
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Phys. Rev. D 111, 113007 – Published 27 June, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/f8nt-ygng

Abstract

We investigate the expected precision of the reconstructed neutrino direction using a νμ-argon quasielasticlike event topology with one muon and one proton in the final state and the reconstruction capabilities of the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber. This direction is of importance in the context of DUNE sub-GeV atmospheric oscillation studies. MicroBooNE allows for a data-driven quantification of this resolution by investigating the deviation of the reconstructed muon-proton system orientation with respect to the well-known direction of neutrinos originating from the Booster Neutrino Beam with an exposure of 1.3×1021 protons on target. Using simulation studies, we derive the expected sub-GeV DUNE atmospheric-neutrino reconstructed simulated spectrum by developing a reweighting scheme as a function of the true neutrino energy. We further report flux-integrated single- and double-differential cross section measurements of charged-current νμ quasielasticlike scattering on argon as a function of the muon-proton system angle using the full MicroBooNE data sets. We also demonstrate the sensitivity of these results to nuclear effects and final state hadronic reinteraction modeling.

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Phys. Rev. D 111, 113007– Published 27 June, 2025
  • Received 24 April 2025
  • Accepted 6 June 2025
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