Scintillation light calibrations, systematic uncertainties, and triggering efficiency in the MicroBooNE detector

Scintillation light calibrations, systematic uncertainties, and triggering efficiency in the MicroBooNE detector

Journal not recorded · Published 2026-01-01

MicroBooNE collaboration, Abratenko, P., Aldana, D. Andrade, Arellano, L., Asaadi, J., Ashkenazi, A., Balasubramanian, S., Baller, B., Barnard, A., Barr, G., Barrow, D., Barrow, J., Basque, V., Bateman, J., Behera, B., Rodrigues, O. Benevides, Berkman, S., Bhat, A., Bhattacharya, M., Bhelande, V., Binau, A., Bishai, M., Blake, A., Bogart, B., Bolton, T., Brunetti, M. B., Camilleri, L., Caratelli, D., Cavanna, F., Cerati, G., Chappell, A., Chen, Y., Conrad, J. M., Convery, M., Cooper-Troendle, L., Crespo-Anadon, J. I., Cross, R., Del Tutto, M., Dennis, S. R., Detje, P., Diurba, R., Djurcic, Z., Duffy, K., Dytman, S., Eberly, B., Englezos, P., Ereditato, A., Evans, J. J., Fang, C., Fleming, B. T., Foreman, W., Franco, D., Furmanski, A. P., Gao, F., Garcia-Gamez, D., Gardiner, S., Ge, G., Gollapinni, S., Gramellini, E., Green, P., Greenlee, H., Gu, L., Gu, W., Guenette, R., Hagaman, L., Handley, M. D., Hen, O., Hergenhan, A., Harrison, M., Hawkins, S., Hilgenberg, C., Horton-Smith, G. A., Hussain, A., Irwin, B., Ismail, M. S., James, C., Ji, X., Jo, J. H., Johnson, A., Johnson, R. A., Kalra, D., Karagiorgi, G., Ketchum, W., Kelly, A., Kirby, M., Kobilarcik, T., Kumar, K., Lane, N., Li, J. -Y., Li, Y., Lin, K., Littlejohn, B. R., Liu, L., Liu, S., Louis, W. C., Luo, X., Mahmud, T., Majeed, N., Mariani, C., Marshall, J., Caicedo, D. A. Martinez, Lopez, F. Martinez, Alves, M. G. Manuel, Martynenko, S., Mastbaum, A., Mawby, I., McConkey, N., McConnell, B., Mellet, L., Mendez, J., Micallef, J., Mohayai, T., Mogan, A., Mooney, M., Moor, A. F., Moore, C. D., Lepin, L. Mora, Morquecho, M. A. Hernandez, Moudgalya, M. M., Babu, S. Mulleria, Naples, D., Navrer-Agasson, A., Nayak, N., Nebot-Guinot, M., Nguyen, C., Nguyen, L., Nowak, J., Oza, N., Palamara, O., Pallat, N., Paolone, V., Papadopoulou, A., Papavassiliou, V., Parkinson, H., Pate, S. F., Patel, N., Pavlovic, Z., Piasetzky, E., Pletcher, K., Pophale, I., Qian, X., Raaf, J. L., Radeka, V., Rafique, A., Raymond, R., Reggiani-Guzzo, M., Rondon, J. Rodriguez, Rosenberg, M., Ross-Lonergan, M., Safa, I., Sauer, C., Schmitz, D. W., Schukraft, A., Seligman, W., Shaevitz, M. H., Sharankova, R., Shi, J., Silva, L., Snider, E. L., Soldner-Rembold, S., Spitz, J., Stancari, M., John, J. St., Strauss, T., Szelc, A. M., Taniuchi, N., Terao, K., Thorpe, C., Torbunov, D., Totani, D., Toups, M., Trettin, A., Tsai, Y. -T., Tyler, J., Uchida, M. A., Usher, T., Viren, B., Wang, J., Wang, L., Weber, M., Wei, H., White, A. J., Wolbers, S., Wongjirad, T., Wresilo, K., Wu, W., Yandel, E., Yang, T., Yates, L. E., Yu, H. W., Zeller, G. P., Zennamo, J., Zhang, C., Zhang, Y.

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Original abstract

Scintillation light, produced alongside ionisation charge from particle interactions, plays a critical role in liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) detectors. A detailed understanding of its production and detection mechanisms is essential for robust calibration, systematic uncertainty evaluation, and physics analysis. This article describes the MicroBooNE light simulation, light-based triggering schemes, photomultiplier tube gain calibration, light response stability, and light-based systematic uncertainties over the course of five years of data collection. In addition, we present a measurement of scintillation light triggering efficiency, focusing on the lowest-light regime relevant to rare-event searches and low-energy neutrino interactions. Finally, we discuss two notable observations in MicroBooNE's data, both reported here for the first time: an approximately 50% decline in MicroBooNE's light yield over time, concentrated in the first two years of running; and a higher than expected O(200 kHz) rate of single photoelectron noise. The results presented provide an important benchmark of long-term light detection performance in LArTPC neutrino detectors.