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First Measurement of Charged-Current Muon-Neutrino-Induced K+ Production on Argon Using the MicroBooNE Detector

P. Abratenko39, D. Andrade Aldana14, L. Arellano22, J. Asaadi38, A. Ashkenazi37, 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. Brunetti17,41, L. Camilleri10, D. Caratelli4, F. Cavanna12, G. Cerati12, A. Chappell41, Y. Chen33, J. M. Conrad23, M. Convery33, L. Cooper-Troendle30, J. I. Crespo-Anadón6, R. Cross41, 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, G. A. Fiorentini Aguirre34, 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, T. Mahmud19, C. Mariani40, D. Marsden22, J. Marshall41, N. Martinez18, D. A. Martinez Caicedo34, S. Martynenko3, A. Mastbaum32, I. Mawby19, N. McConkey31, V. Meddage18, L. Mellet25, J. Mendez21, J. Micallef23,39, 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. Papadopoulou1, V. Papavassiliou28, H. B. Parkinson11, S. F. Pate28, N. Patel19, Z. Pavlovic12, E. Piasetzky37, K. Pletcher25, I. Pophale19, X. Qian3, J. L. Raaf12, V. Radeka3, A. Rafique1, M. Reggiani-Guzzo11, J. Rodriguez Rondon34, M. Rosenberg39, M. Ross-Lonergan20, I. Safa10, D. W. Schmitz7, A. Schukraft12, W. Seligman10, M. H. Shaevitz10, R. Sharankova12, J. Shi5, E. L. Snider12, M. Soderberg36, 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. Wongjirad39, 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
  • 36Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA
  • 37Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 69978
  • 38University of Texas, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA
  • 39Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA
  • 40Center for Neutrino Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
  • 41University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

  • *Contact author: microboone_info@fnal.gov
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 251804 – Published 19 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/96vx-gq2g

Abstract

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 K+ 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 K+ production on argon nuclei, determined to be 7.93±3.22(stat)±2.83(syst)×10−42  cm2/nucleon based on an analysis of 6.88×1020 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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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 251804– Published 19 December, 2025
  • Received 6 March 2025
  • Revised 13 November 2025
  • Accepted 19 November 2025
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