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Hadron production measurements of the EMPATHIC group

University of British Columbia

Long-baseline neutrino experiments produce neutrinos by colliding a beam onto a target. Hadrons produced in the target can be magnetically focused into a beam that decays in flight, yielding a collimated beam of neutrinos. Neutrino flux predictions are used to constrain the uncertainties of the detected neutrino flux and its uncertainty is dominated by the uncertainties in hadronic interactions. The reduction of this uncertainty would further the physics goals for these experiments. These uncertainties can be sourced to the production cross section uncertainty which has been set to a conservative value due to previous discrepancies in the estimated production cross section seen in the NA61/SHINE 2cm and 90cm carbon target data, used by the T2K collaboration. In addition, untuned secondary interactions within the horn and decay volume contribute to the uncertainty. The EMPHATIC group has taken data using the Fermilab test beam on carbon, aluminum, and steel targets for hadrons ranging from 2GeV/c to 120GeV/c. EMPHATIC uses gas Cherenkov and lead glass calorimeters for particle identification, semiconductor tracking detectors for position and timing information, and emulsion situated on a moving table for precise position measurements. In addition, an aerogel Cherenkov detector was constructed at TRIUMF which was used for testing at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility. The silicon strip tracking detectors were instrumental in the data acquisition of the EMPHATIC experiment. The data acquired by the silicon strip detector for 30GeV/c protons impinging on a carbon target was fit with the Bellettini et al. model [1]. The parameters of the total cross section, the black body radius, and the nuclear transparency term were fit and agree within one standard deviation with previous measurements of Bellettini et al. The elastic cross section agrees within two standard deviations.

Text

2018-08-20

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/66837

Physics

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/