Kalman filter based tracker study for lepton flavor violation experiments

TL;DR

This paper presents a Kalman filter-based tracking detector design for lepton flavor violation experiments, demonstrating improved momentum resolution and background suppression to enhance sensitivity to rare decay processes.

Contribution

It introduces a reconfigurable detector with a two-stage pattern recognition process using Kalman filters for background reduction and precise momentum reconstruction.

Findings

Achieves momentum resolution of 0.17-0.33 MeV for key processes.

Enhances experimental sensitivity to lepton flavor violation by several orders of magnitude.

Develops a novel two-stage pattern recognition method for background suppression.

Abstract

A tracking detector is proposed for lepton flavor violation experiments ($\mu \to e$ conversion, $\mu \to e + \gamma$, $\mu \to 3e $) consisting of identical chambers which can be reconfigured to meet the requirements for all three experiments. A pattern recognition and track reconstruction procedure based on the Kalman filter technique is presented for this detector. The pattern recognition proceeds in two stages. At the first stage only hit straw tube center coordinates, without drift time information, are used to reduce the background to a manageable level. At the second stage the drift time information is incorporated and a deterministic annealing filter is applied to reach the final level of background suppression. The final track momentum reconstruction is provided by a combinatorial drop filter which is effective in hit-to-track assignment. The momentum resolution of the tracker in measuring monochromatic leptons is found to be $\sigma_{p}$ = 0.17 and 0.26 MeV for the $\mu \to e$ conversion and $\mu^+ \to e^+ + \gamma$ processes, respectively. The tracker reconstruction resolution for the total scalar lepton momentum is $\sigma_{p} = $ 0.33 MeV for the $\mu \to 3e$ process. The obtained tracker resolutions allow an increase in sensitivity to the branching ratios for these processes by a few orders of magnitude over current experimental limits.