Muon Neutrino on Electron Elastic Scattering in the NOvA Near Detector and its Applications Beyond the Standard Model

Using the NuMI beam at Fermilab and the NOvA near detector, we study the process by which a muon neutrino elastically scatters off an electron in the detector to produce a very forward going electromagnetic shower. By comparing dE/dx for various particle hypotheses for both longitudinal and transver...

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Published inJournal of physics. Conference series Vol. 888; no. 1; pp. 12123 - 12126
Main Authors Wang, Biao, Bian, Jianming, Coan, Thomas E., Kotelnikov, Sergey, Duyang, Hongyue, Hatzikoutelis, Athanasios
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bristol IOP Publishing 01.09.2017
Subjects
Algorithms
Dark matter
Elastic scattering
Electrons
Magnetic moments
Multilayer perceptrons
Muons
Neural networks
Neutral currents
Neutrinos
Physics
Scattering cross sections
Sensors
Standard model (particle physics)
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Summary:Using the NuMI beam at Fermilab and the NOvA near detector, we study the process by which a muon neutrino elastically scatters off an electron in the detector to produce a very forward going electromagnetic shower. By comparing dE/dx for various particle hypotheses for both longitudinal and transverse directions in a multilayer perceptron neural network, we trained a Particle ID algorithm to identify the scattered electron in an inclusive dataset. Muon-neutrino-on-e elastic scattering provides a clean, purely leptonic process free from nuclear effects for understanding neutral current scattering and constraining the NuMI beam flux. Also, this technique can be applied in two broad areas of beyond the standard model physics: a large neutrino transition magnetic moment and light dark matter particles produced in the NuMI target, both of which would create an energy dependent enhancement in the elastic scattering cross section.
ISSN:1742-6588
1742-6596
DOI:10.1088/1742-6596/888/1/012123