Intrinsic limits on resolutions in muon- and electron-neutrino charged-current events in the KM3NeT/ORCA detector

• Published in: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Main Authors: Adrián-Martínez, S, Bouwhuis, M., Bruijn, R., Heijboer, A., Jongen, M., Koffeman, E.N., Kooijman, P., Melis, K.W., Peek, H., Vermeulen, J., Wiggers, L., Wolf, E. de
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Orca
• Online Access: https://dare.uva.nl/personal/pure/en/publications/intrinsic-limits-on-resolutions-in-muon-and-electronneutrino-chargedcurrent-events-in-the-km3netorca-detector(4dd0900a-0bbe-4bd9-a821-1519ac2073ec).html; https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2017)008; https://hdl.handle.net/11245.1/4dd0900a-0bbe-4bd9-a821-1519ac2073ec; https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/21008206/Intrinsic_limits_on_resolutions_in_muon.pdf; https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.05621

Studying atmospheric neutrino oscillations in the few-GeV range with a multimegaton detector promises to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy. This is the main science goal pursued by the future KM3NeT/ORCA water Cherenkov detector in the Mediterranean Sea. In this paper, the processes that limit the obtainable resolution in both energy and direction in charged-current neutrino events in the ORCA detector are investigated. These processes include the composition of the hadronic fragmentation products, the subsequent particle propagation and the photon-sampling fraction of the detector. GEANT simulations of neutrino interactions in seawater produced by GENIE are used to study the effects in the 1-20 GeV range. It is found that fluctuations in the hadronic cascade in conjunction with the variation of the inelasticity y are most detrimental to the resolutions. The effect of limited photon sampling in the detector is of significantly less importance. These results will therefore also be applicable to similar detectors/media, such as those in ice.