THE PION DOUBLE DIFFERENTIAL CHARGE EXCHANGE CROSS SECTION IN PROTODUNE-SP

The Deep Underground Experiment is a next generation long baseline neutrino experiment. The experiment will measure the magnitude of charge-parity (CP) symmetry violation in the lepton sector, using neutrino oscillations. The choice of baseline ensures an unambiguous measurement of the CP violating phase, δ_CP, can be made. The baseline choice requires a wide-band higher energy E_\nu > 1GeV neutrino beam. Higher energy neutrino interactions are more complicated and produce more charged pions with sizable effects from final state interactions as they traverse the nucleus. The final state interactions, especially of charged pions, can lead to mis-identification of neutrino flavor and biases in the neutrino energy reconstruction. The current charged pion cross sections used to simulate the final state interactions have up to 50\% uncertainties, for the pion charge exchange cross section. The simulation uses empirical measurements to model these cross sections or to validate the implemented models. The final state interaction uncertainties will translate to an uncertainty on the measured neutrino count and energy. A component of reducing these uncertainties is to reduce the charged pion cross section uncertainties. Measurements of the charged pion cross sections will aid in reducing these model uncertainties. The ProtoDUNE-SP is a DUNE far detector prototype located in a charged particle test beam at CERN. The test beam provided positively charged particles ranging in momentum from 0.3 - 7GeV/c. Motivated by the reasons above, the pion charge exchange cross section π⁺ + {}{}⁴⁰Ar \rightarrow {}{}^40-NAr + π⁰ + N measurement is presented in this dissertation. The total cross section is measured using the 2GeV/c π⁺ dataset. In addition, the single and double differential cross sections are measured in the outgoing π⁰ kinematics, the kinetic energy T_π⁰ and scattering angle cosθ_π⁰.

Author dc:creator

• Sensenig, Jonathon

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Klein, Joshua, R

• Physics

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/60888

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.upenn.edu:20.500.14332/60888