# Calibration of the charge and energy loss per unit length of the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber using muons and protons

## TL;DR

This paper presents a data-driven calibration method for the MicroBooNE liquid argon TPC, improving energy measurement accuracy and particle identification by correcting for various detector effects using cosmic-ray muons and stopping protons.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a novel calibration technique that accounts for multiple detector effects, enhancing energy scale precision and particle identification in liquid argon TPCs.

## Key findings

- Achieved 2% absolute energy scale uncertainty in data.
- Improved proton selection efficiency by 2%.
- Enhanced energy loss measurement accuracy for ionizing particles.

## Abstract

We describe a method used to calibrate the position- and time-dependent response of the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber anode wires to ionization particle energy loss. The method makes use of crossing cosmic-ray muons to partially correct anode wire signals for multiple effects as a function of time and position, including cross-connected TPC wires, space charge effects, electron attachment to impurities, diffusion, and recombination. The overall energy scale is then determined using fully-contained beam-induced muons originating and stopping in the active region of the detector. Using this method, we obtain an absolute energy scale uncertainty of 2\% in data. We use stopping protons to further refine the relation between the measured charge and the energy loss for highly-ionizing particles. This data-driven detector calibration improves both the measurement of total deposited energy and particle identification based on energy loss per unit length as a function of residual range. As an example, the proton selection efficiency is increased by 2\% after detector calibration.