Cosmic Ray Induced EM Showers in the NO$\nu$A Detectors

TL;DR

This paper investigates electromagnetic showers caused by cosmic rays in the NO$ u$A neutrino detectors, using muon-removal techniques to analyze and validate detector response and simulation accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a muon-removal method to isolate pure EM showers from cosmic muon data for detector calibration and validation purposes.

Findings

Characterized EM signatures from cosmic muons.

Validated simulation and reconstruction algorithms.

Enhanced calibration procedures for NO$ u$A detectors.

Abstract

The NO$\nu$A experiment is an electron neutrino appearance neutrino oscillation experiment at Fermilab. Electron neutrino events are identified by the electromagnetic (EM) showers induced by electrons in the final state of neutrino interactions. EM showers induced by cosmic muons or rock muons, are abundant in NO$\nu$A detectors. We use a Muon-Removal Technique to get pure EM shower samples from cosmic and rock muon data. Those samples can be used to characterize the EM signature and provide valuable checks of the MC simulation, reconstruction, PID algorithms, and calibration across the NO$\nu$A detectors.