Backgrounds in Neutrino Appearance Signal at MiniBooNE

TL;DR

This paper reviews the background processes affecting neutrino appearance signals at MiniBooNE, detailing sources and methods to handle them to improve oscillation search accuracy.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive summary of background sources and the analytical tools used to mitigate them in the MiniBooNE neutrino oscillation experiment.

Findings

Identification of key background sources like intrinsic ν_e and mis-identified events

Development of tools to accurately estimate and subtract backgrounds

Enhanced understanding of background impacts on oscillation signal detection

Abstract

The MiniBooNE (Booster Neutrino Experiment) experiment is a precise search for neutrino oscillations but is crucially sensitive to background processes that would mimic an oscillation signal. The background sources include intrinsic $\nu_{e}$ from kaon and muon decays, mis-identified $\pi^{0}$, gammas from radiative delta decays, and muon neutrino events mis-identified as electrons. A summary of these backgrounds and the tools to handle them is presented.