Finding Nuclear Clusters in the Short-Baseline Near Detector

Abstract

Production of nuclear clusters such as deuterons, tritons, helions and alpha particles has only recently been simulated for neutrino-nucleus interactions, and has not yet been measured in neutrino experiments. The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is the first Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) with high enough resolution and a large enough neutrino flux to accurately measure the cross-section for the production of heavier-than-proton fragments in neutrino interactions. SBND is a 112-ton LArTPC, and lies 110 m downstream from the Booster Neutrino Beam target, where it has already collected the world's largest dataset of neutrino-argon interactions. In these processes, the intranuclear cascade and nuclear de-excitation stages can both produce nuclear clusters. With LArTPC technology's excellent reconstruction capabilities and SBND's unprecedented neutrino statistics, a measurement of these nuclear clusters could distinguish between nuclear models and improve neutrino energy reconstruction. This poster presents the status of simulation, reconstruction, and prospects for a measurement of nuclear clusters in SBND.