Calibration of Muon Reconstruction Algorithms Using an External Muon Tracking System at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

TL;DR

This paper describes the installation and use of an external muon tracking system at SNO to improve the accuracy of muon reconstruction algorithms, achieving directional uncertainty better than 0.6 degrees.

Contribution

It introduces a new external muon tracking system integrated with SNO to calibrate and constrain muon reconstruction algorithms.

Findings

Muon direction uncertainty constrained to <0.6 degrees

External system operated for 95 live days

Improved muon reconstruction accuracy

Abstract

To help constrain the algorithms used in reconstructing high-energy muon events incident on the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), a muon tracking system was installed. The system consisted of four planes of wire chambers, which were triggered by scintillator panels. The system was integrated with SNO's main data acquisition system and took data for a total of 95 live days. Using cosmic-ray events reconstructed in both the wire chambers and in SNO's water Cherenkov detector, the external muon tracking system was able to constrain the uncertainty on the muon direction to better than 0.6 degrees.