Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
1827707 Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment 2009 19 Pages PDF
Abstract

The Booster Neutrino Experiment (MiniBooNE) searches for νμ→νeνμ→νe oscillations using the ~1GeV neutrino beam produced by the FNAL Booster synchrotron. The array of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) lining the MiniBooNE detector records Cherenkov and scintillation photons from the charged particles produced in neutrino interactions. We describe a maximum likelihood fitting algorithm used to reconstruct the basic properties (position, direction, energy) of these particles from the charges and times measured by the PMTs. The likelihoods returned from fitting an event to different particle hypotheses are used to categorize it as a signal νeνe event or as one of the background νμνμ processes, in particular charged current quasi-elastic scattering and neutral current π0π0 production. The reconstruction and event selection techniques described here can be applied to current and future neutrino experiments using similar Cherenkov-based detection.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Physics and Astronomy Instrumentation
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