Cherenkov Light in Liquid Scintillator at the NOvA Experiment

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and tuning of a Cherenkov light model in liquid scintillator detectors at NOvA, crucial for accurate neutrino energy measurements and improved oscillation parameter estimation.

Contribution

It introduces a data-driven approach to tune the Cherenkov light model and evaluates the impact of a new scintillator model on detector performance.

Findings

Enhanced accuracy in particle energy estimation

Improved neutrino oscillation parameter measurements

Refined scintillator light modeling techniques

Abstract

NOvA is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment with two functionally identical liquid scintillator tracking detectors, i.e. the Near Detector (ND) and the Far Detector (FD). One of NOvA's physics goal is to measure neutrino oscillation parameters by studying $\nu_e$ appearance and $\nu_{\mu}$ disappearance with the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. An accurate light model is a prerequisite for precise charged particle energy estimation in the detectors. Particle energy is needed in event reconstruction and classification, both of which are critical to constraining neutrino oscillation parameters. In this paper, I will explain the details of the data-driven tuning of the Cherenkov model and the impact of the new scintillator model