MicroBooNE Public Data Sets: a Collaborative Tool for LArTPC Software Development

TL;DR

This paper introduces publicly released MicroBooNE LArTPC data sets in multiple formats to foster collaborative development in neutrino physics, AI, and computing, emphasizing transparency, accessibility, and community engagement.

Contribution

It presents the first open data sets from MicroBooNE in both native and simplified formats, enabling broader collaboration and software development in the LArTPC community.

Findings

Data sets include neutrino interactions with cosmic backgrounds.

Data formats support diverse user expertise levels.

Extensive documentation facilitates community use.

Abstract

Among liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) experiments MicroBooNE is the one that continually took physics data for the longest time (2015-2021), and represents the state of the art for reconstruction and analysis with this detector. Recently published analyses include oscillation physics results, searches for anomalies and other BSM signatures, and cross section measurements. LArTPC detectors are being used in current experiments such as ICARUS and SBND, and being planned for future experiments such as DUNE. MicroBooNE has recently released to the public two of its data sets, with the goal of enabling collaborative software developments with other LArTPC experiments and with AI or computing experts. These data sets simulate neutrino interactions on top of off-beam data, which include cosmic ray background and noise. The data sets are released in two formats: the native art/ROOT format used internally by the collaboration and familiar to other LArTPC experts, and the HDF5 format which contains reduced and simplified content and is suitable for usage by the broader community. This contribution presents the open data sets, discusses their motivation, the technical implementation, and the extensive documentation -- all inspired by FAIR principles. Finally, opportunities for collaborations are discussed.