Search for an Excess of Electron Neutrino Interactions in MicroBooNE Using Multiple Final State Topologies

TL;DR

This study uses MicroBooNE's liquid argon detector to search for excess electron neutrino interactions, employing multiple analysis methods, but finds results consistent with expected neutrino rates and no excess observed.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive multi-topology search for electron neutrino excess in MicroBooNE, addressing MiniBooNE's observed low-energy anomaly with new data.

Findings

No excess of electron neutrino events detected

Results consistent with expected neutrino rates

Multiple analysis approaches yield similar conclusions

Abstract

We present a measurement of electron neutrino interactions from the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam using the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber to address the nature of the excess of low energy interactions observed by the MiniBooNE collaboration. Three independent electron neutrino searches are performed across multiple single electron final states, including an exclusive search for two-body scattering events with a single proton, a semi-inclusive search for pion-less events, and a fully inclusive search for events containing all hadronic final states. With differing signal topologies, statistics, backgrounds, reconstruction algorithms, and analysis approaches, the results are found to be consistent with the nominal electron neutrino rate expectations from the Booster Neutrino Beam and no excess of electron neutrino events is observed.