Scintillating fiber near detector for the Neutrino Factory

TL;DR

This paper proposes a scintillating fiber tracker for a neutrino near detector at the Neutrino Factory, enabling precise neutrino flux measurement by distinguishing neutrino-electron scattering from background interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel detector design and two methods for extracting neutrino-electron scattering signals, improving signal-to-background ratio significantly.

Findings

Monte Carlo simulations validate the detector design.

Proper selection cuts enhance signal-to-background ratio from ~10^{-4} to 30-50%.

Two signal extraction methods are developed and tested.

Abstract

Neutrino Factory is a facility for future precision studies of neutrino oscillations. A so called near detector is essential for reaching the aimed precision of neutrino oscillation analysis. Main task of a near detector is to measure the flux of the neutrino beam. The brilliant neutrino source provides opportunity for precision studies of various neutrino interaction processes in a near detector. We present design concept of a scintillating fiber tracker capable of measuring the neutrino flux. The basic idea is to separate pure leptonic neutrino-electron scattering from the overwhelming background of neutrino-nucleon interactions. Monte Carlo simulation of the detector and simple event reconstruction algorithms are presented. It is shown that proper selection cuts increase signal to background ratio from ~ 10^{-4} to 30-50 %. Two methods for extraction of signal events are developed.