Published March 4, 2020
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Journal article
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Search for heavy neutral leptons decaying into muon-pion pairs in the MicroBooNE detector
Creators
- Abratenko, P.1
- Alrashed, M.2
- An, R.3
- Anthony, J.4
- Asaadi, J.5
- Ashkenazi, A.6
- Balasubramanian, S.7
- Baller, B.8
- Barnes, C.9
- Barr, G.10
- Basque, V.11
- Berkman, S.8
- Bhanderi, A.11
- Bhat, A.12
- Blake, A.13
- Bolton, T.2
- Camilleri, L.14
- Caratelli, D.8
- Caro Terrazas, I.15
- Castillo Fernandez, R.8
- Cavanna, F.8
- Mastbaum, A.16
- Miller, K.16
- Schmitz, D.W.16
- 1. Tufts University
- 2. Kansas State University
- 3. Illinois Institute of Technology
- 4. University of Cambridge
- 5. University of Texas
- 6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 7. Yale University
- 8. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
- 9. University of Michigan
- 10. University of Oxford
- 11. University of Manchester
- 12. Syracuse University
- 13. Lancaster University
- 14. Columbia University
- 15. Colorado State University
- 16. University of Chicago
Description
We present upper limits on the production of heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) decaying to πβ’π 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 Γ1020 protons on target from the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam, which produces mainly muon neutrinos with an average energy of β800ββMeV. 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 |ππβ’4|2 of the extended PMNS mixing matrix in the range |ππβ’4|2<(6.6β0.9)Γ10β7 for Dirac HNLs and |ππβ’4|2<(4.7β0.7)Γ10β7 for Majorana HNLs, assuming HNL masses between 260 and 385 MeV and |ππβ’4|2 =|ππβ’4|2 =0.
Notes
Due to the large number of authors, only the first 20 and the University of Chicago authors are included on the above author list. Please download the article for the complete list of authors.
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PhysRevD.101.052001.pdf
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Additional details
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1103/PhysRevD.101.052001
- Other
- oai:uchicago.tind.io:14194
Funding
- U.S. Department of Energy
- DE-AC02-07CH11359
- National Science Foundation
- Swiss National Science Foundation
- United Kingdom Research and Innovation
- The Royal Society
- Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics