Measurement of Through-Going Particle Momentum By Means Of Multiple Scattering With The ICARUS T600 TPC

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that muon momentum can be accurately measured in the ICARUS T600 liquid Argon TPC using multiple Coulomb scattering, with enhanced precision achieved through Kalman Filtering, aiding neutrino physics studies.

Contribution

It introduces and validates algorithms for muon momentum reconstruction in partially contained tracks using multiple Coulomb scattering and Kalman Filtering in the ICARUS T600 detector.

Findings

Muon momentum can be reconstructed for tracks at least one meter long.

Kalman Filtering improves momentum resolution by a factor of two.

The techniques enhance the detector's capability to analyze atmospheric neutrino events.

Abstract

The ICARUS collaboration has demonstrated, following the operation of a 600 ton (T600) detector at shallow depth, that the technique based on liquid Argon TPCs is now mature. The study of rare events, not contemplated in the Standard Model, can greatly benefit from the use of this kind of detectors. In particular, a deeper understanding of atmospheric neutrino properties will be obtained thanks to the unprecedented quality of the data ICARUS provides. However if we concentrate on the T600 performance, most of the $\nu_\mu$ charged current sample will be partially contained, due to the reduced dimensions of the detector. In this article, we address the problem of how well we can determine the kinematics of events having partially contained tracks. The analysis of a large sample of atmospheric muons collected during the T600 test run demonstrate that, in case the recorded track is at least one meter long, the muon momentum can be reconstructed by an algorithm that measures the Multiple Coulomb Scattering along the particle's path. Moreover, we show that momentum resolution can be improved by a factor two using an algorithm based on the Kalman Filtering technique.