User:Sophie/RPC
Channel Description
An important background to the Mu2e experiment is that originating from negatively charged pions produced at the primary production target. These pions can provide two potential sources of backgrounds to both signal channels if they stop on the Al Stopping Target and a radiative nuclear capture process occurs. There are two scenarios:
- External RPC where an outgoing (real) photon converts externally to an e^{+}e^{-}pair, most likely in one of the Al foils:
\begin{equation} \pi^{-} + N(A,Z) \rightarrow \gamma + N(A, Z-1) \rightarrow N(A, Z-1) + e^{+} + e^{-}, \end{equation}
where (A, Z - 1) is the daughter nucleus of the process.
- Internal conversion is related, but quantum mechanically independent:
\begin{equation} \pi^{-} + N(A,Z) \rightarrow N(A, Z-1) + e^{+} + e^{-}. \end{equation}
Here the e^{+}e^{-} pair is produced by an internal, virtual, photon. External Conversions and Internal Conversions can be categorized collectively as pion-capture backgrounds to the \mu^{-} --> e^{-} if the pair-produced electron has an energy consistent with a conversion-electron signature. Likewise, the outgoing positron can pose a background to the lepton number violating \mu^{-} --> e^{+}$ channel.
Although pion-capture backgrounds are sub-dominant they are the driving force behind the livegate optimization in our analysis.
Literature
- Bistrilich et al: https://mu2e-docdb.fnal.gov/cgi-bin/sso/RetrieveFile?docid=469&filename=bistirlich_and_crowe.pdf&version=1 this paper details a study of the external photon spectrum. We use the spectrum measured for Mg.
- Kroll-Wada: https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.98.1355 and Joseph: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02860383 these papers detail the outgoing electron/positron spectra used in our generators for the internal scenario.