Abstract
The MiniBooNE excess persists as a significant puzzle in particle physics. Given that the MiniBooNE detector cannot discriminate between electron-like signals and backgrounds due to photons, the goal of this work is to study photon backgrounds in MiniBooNE in depth. We first consider a novel single-photon background arising from multi-nucleon scattering with coherently enhanced initial or final state radiation. This class of processes, which we dub “2p2hγ” (two-particle–two-hole + photon) can explain ~40 of the ~560 excess events observed by MiniBooNE in neutrino mode. Second, we consider the background from neutral-current single-π0 production, where two photons from π0 → γγ decay are mis-identified as an electron-like shower. We construct a phenomenological likelihood that reproduces MiniBooNE’s π0 → γγ background faithfully. Even with data-driven background estimation techniques, we find there is a residual dependence on the Monte Carlo generator used. Our results motivate a reduction in the significance of the MiniBooNE excess by 0.4σ.
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Acknowledgments
It is a pleasure to thank Pedro Machado for valuable discussions and collaboration on early stages of this project, and Vedran Brdar for very useful feedback on an earlier copy of this manuscript. We have moreover benefited tremendously from exchanges with Omar Benhar and Ulrich Mosel. Finally, this work would not have been possible without innumerable in-depth discussions with members of the MiniBooNE collaboration, notably Janet Conrad, Bill Louis, Austin Schneider, and Mike Shaevitz, for which we are very grateful.
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Kelly, K.J., Kopp, J. More ingredients for an Altarelli cocktail at MiniBooNE. J. High Energ. Phys. 2023, 113 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2023)113
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2023)113