Determination of muon momentum in the MicroBooNE LArTPC using an improved model of multiple Coulomb scattering

Understand

We discuss a technique for measuring a charged particle's momentum by means of multiple Coulomb scattering (MCS) in the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC).

• This method does not require the full particle ionization track to be contained inside of the detector volume as other track momentum reconstruction methods do (range-based momentum reconstruction and calorimetric momentum reconstruction).
• We motivate use of this technique, describe a tuning of the underlying phenomenological formula, quantify its performance on fully contained beam-neutrino-induced muon tracks both in simulation and in data, and quantify its performance on exiting muon tracks in simulation.
• Using simulation, we have shown that the standard Highland formula should be re-tuned specifically for scattering in liquid argon, which significantly improves the bias and resolution of the momentum measurement.