Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Date of Award

4-2019

Document Type

Honors Paper

Degree Name

Physics-BS

Department

Physics

Advisor

Dr. Nathaniel Tagg

First Committee Member

Dr. Nathaniel Tagg

Second Committee Member

Dr. David Robertson

Third Committee Member

Erica Van Dop

Keywords

LArTPC Scintillation Light Cosmic Ray Muon

Subject Categories

Elementary Particles and Fields and String Theory | Physics

Abstract

Each Photomultiplier Tube (PMT) in the MicroBooNE detector has an excessive single photoelectron (SPE) rate of 250 kHz, significantly larger than the PMT’s intrinsic SPE rate of 5 kHz. It is believed that this excess is due to late light from cosmic ray muons. The SPE rate was modeled as a single exponential decay with a constant background. The lifetime of the late light was measured to be 340 ± 20 s. The late light is responsible for a SPE rate of 42.8 ± 0.7 kHz per PMT. The constant background, which is independent of muons, produces a SPE rate of 217.1 ± 0.4 kHz per PMT. It is also shown that there is more late light from larger muons and more late light in the proximity of the muon.

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