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Register a new userStatus of the MicroBooNE Low Energy Excess Search
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David Caratelli
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MicroBooNE is a neutrino experiment that utilizes a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) located on-axis in the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab. One of the experiments main goals is to search for excess low-energy electromagnetic-like events as seen by the MiniBooNE experiment, located just downstream of MicroBooNE in the BNB. As MicroBooNE nears the completion of its first single-electron-like and single-photon-like searches, these proceedings present the status of MicroBooNEs low-energy excess search as of early summer 2020. In addition to presenting an overview of the approach to the analysis, we showcase results from $pi^0$ calibrations and e/$gamma$ separation, and sample results from sidebands aimed at validating the analysis progress outside the low-energy signal region.
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The search for dark matter, the missing mass of the Universe, is one of the most active fields of study within particle physics. The XENON1T experiment recently observed a 3.5$sigma$ excess potentially consistent with dark matter, or with solar axions. Here, we will use the Noble Element Simulation Technique (NEST) software to simulate the XENON1T detector, reproducing the excess. We utilize different detector efficiency and energy reconstruction models, but they primarily impact sub-keV energies and cannot explain the XENON1T excess. However, using NEST, we can reproduce their excess in multiple, unique ways, most easily via the addition of 31$pm$11 $^{37}Ar$ decays. Furthermore, this results in new, modified background models, reducing the significance of the excess to $le2.2sigma$ at least using non-Profile Likelihood Ratio (PLR) methods. This is independent confirmation that the excess is a real effect, but potentially explicable by known physics. Many cross-checks of our $^{37}Ar$ hypothesis are presented.
Using a cleanly tagged data sample of $ u_mu$ charged current events, it is demonstrated that the rate at which such events are mis-identified as $ u_e$s is accurately simulated in the MiniBooNE $ u_mu to u_e$ analysis. Such mis-identification, which could arise from muon internal bremsstrahlung, is decisively ruled out as a source of the low energy electron-like events reported in the MiniBooNE search for $ u_mu to u_e$ oscillations. This refutes the conclusions of a recent paper which postulates that hard bremsstrahlung could form a substantial background to the MiniBooNE $ u_e$ sample.
We present the results of a new analysis of the data of the MiniBooNE experiment taking into account the additional background of photons from $Delta^{+/0}$ decay proposed in arXiv:1909.08571 and additional contributions due to coherent photon emission, incoherent production of higher mass resonances, and incoherent non-resonant nucleon production. We show that the new background can explain part of the MiniBooNE low-energy excess and the statistical significance of the MiniBooNE indication in favor of short-baseline neutrino oscillation decreases from $5.1sigma$ to $3.6sigma$. We also consider the implications for short-baseline neutrino oscillations in the 3+1 active-sterile neutrino mixing framework. We show that the new analysis of the MiniBooNE data indicates smaller active-sterile neutrino mixing and may lead us towards a solution of the appearance-disappearance tension in the global fit of short-baseline neutrino oscillation data.
We have started the development of a detector system, sensitive to single photons in the eV energy range, to be suitably coupled to one of the CAST magnet ports. This system should open to CAST a window on possible detection of low energy Axion Like Particles emitted by the sun. Preliminary tests have involved a cooled photomultiplier tube coupled to the CAST magnet via a Galileian telescope and a switched 40 m long optical fiber. This system has reached the limit background level of the detector alone in ideal conditions, and two solar tracking runs have been performed with it at CAST. Such a measurement has never been done before with an axion helioscope. We will present results from these runs and briefly discuss future detector developments.
We present upper limits on the production of heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) decaying to $mu pi$ pairs using data collected with the MicroBooNE liquid-argon time projection chamber (TPC) operating at Fermilab. This search is the first of its kind performed in a liquid-argon TPC. We use data collected in 2017 and 2018 corresponding to an exposure of $2.0 times 10^{20}$ protons on target from the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam, which produces mainly muon neutrinos with an average energy of $approx 800$ MeV. HNLs with higher mass are expected to have a longer time-of-flight to the liquid-argon TPC than Standard Model neutrinos. The data are therefore recorded with a dedicated trigger configured to detect HNL decays that occur after the neutrino spill reaches the detector. We set upper limits at the $90%$ confidence level on the element $lvert U_{mu4}rvert^2$ of the extended PMNS mixing matrix in the range $lvert U_{mu4}rvert^2<(6.6$-$0.9)times 10^{-7}$ for Dirac HNLs and $lvert U_{mu4}rvert^2<(4.7$-$0.7)times 10^{-7}$ for Majorana HNLs, assuming HNL masses between $260$ and $385$ MeV and $lvert U_{e 4}rvert^2 = lvert U_{tau 4}rvert^2 = 0$.
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