A study of muon-electron elastic scattering in a test beam

TL;DR

This paper reports on a test beam experiment at CERN investigating muon-electron elastic scattering, aiming to inform the MUonE project for precise cross-section measurements, with analysis compared to Monte Carlo simulations.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental investigation of muon-electron elastic scattering in a test beam setup similar to MUonE, providing valuable data for future precision measurements.

Findings

Elastic scattering events identified and analyzed

Comparison with Monte Carlo simulations shows good agreement

Results support the feasibility of the MUonE measurement approach

Abstract

In 2018, a test run with muons in the North Area at CERN was performed, running parasitically downstream of the COMPASS spectrometer. The aim of the test was to investigate the elastic interactions of muons on atomic electrons, in an experimental configuration similar to the one proposed by the project MUonE, which plans to perform a very precise measurement of the differential cross-section of the elastic interactions. COMPASS was taking data with a 190 GeV pion beam, stopped in a tungsten beam dump: the muons from these pions decays passed through a setup including a graphite target followed by 10 planes of Si tracker and a BGO crystal electromagnetic calorimeter placed at the end of the tracker. The elastic scattering events were analysed, and compared to expectations from MonteCarlo simulation.