An improved method for measuring muon energy using the truncated mean of dE/dx
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
2016-02-23 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract
The measurement of muon energy is critical for many analyses in large Cherenkov detectors, particularly those that involve separating extraterrestrial neutrinos from the atmospheric neutrino background. Muon energy has traditionally been determined by measuring the specific energy loss (dE/dx) along the muon's path and relating the dE/dx to the muon energy. Because high-energy muons (E_mu > 1 TeV) lose energy randomly, the spread in dE/dx values is quite large, leading to a typical energy resolution of 0.29 in log10(E_mu) for a muon observed over a 1 km path length in the IceCube detector. In this paper, we present an improved method that uses a truncated mean and other techniques to determine the muon energy. The muon track is divided into separate segments with individual dE/dx values. The elimination of segments with the highest dE/dx results in an overall dE/dx that is more closely correlated to the muon energy. This method results in an energy resolution of 0.22 in log10(E_mu), which gives a 26% improvement. This technique is applicable to any large water or ice detector and potentially to large scintillator or liquid argon detectors.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1208.3430,
title = {An improved method for measuring muon energy using the truncated mean of dE/dx},
author = {IceCube collaboration and R. Abbasi and Y. Abdou and M. Ackermann and J. Adams and J. A. Aguilar and M. Ahlers and D. Altmann and K. Andeen and J. Auffenberg and X. Bai and M. Baker and S. W. Barwick and V. Baum and R. Bay and K. Beattie and J. J. Beatty and S. Bechet and J. Becker Tjus and K. -H. Becker and M. Bell and M. L. Benabderrahmane and S. BenZvi and J. Berdermann and P. Berghaus and D. Berley and E. Bernardini and D. Bertrand and D. Z. Besson and D. Bindig and M. Bissok and E. Blaufuss and J. Blumenthal and D. J. Boersma and C. Bohm and D. Bose and S. Böser and O. Botner and L. Brayeur and A. M. Brown and R. Bruijn and J. Brunner and S. Buitink and M. Carson and J. Casey and M. Casier and D. Chirkin and B. Christy and F. Clevermann and S. Cohen and D. F. Cowen and A. H. Cruz Silva and M. Danninger and J. Daughhetee and J. C. Davis and C. De Clercq and F. Descamps and P. Desiati and G. de Vries-Uiterweerd and T. DeYoung and J. C. Díaz-Vélez and J. Dreyer and J. P. Dumm and M. Dunkman and R. Eagan and J. Eisch and C. Elliott and R. W. Ellsworth and O. Engdegård and S. Euler and P. A. Evenson and O. Fadiran and A. R. Fazely and A. Fedynitch and J. Feintzeig and T. Feusels and K. Filimonov and C. Finley and T. Fischer-Wasels and S. Flis and A. Franckowiak and R. Franke and K. Frantzen and T. Fuchs and T. K. Gaisser and J. Gallagher and L. Gerhardt and L. Gladstone and T. Glüsenkamp and A. Goldschmidt and J. A. Goodman and D. Góra and D. Grant and A. Groß and S. Grullon and M. Gurtner and C. Ha and A. Haj Ismail and A. Hallgren and F. Halzen and K. Hanson and D. Heereman and P. Heimann and D. Heinen and K. Helbing and R. Hellauer and S. Hickford and G. C. Hill and K. D. Hoffman and R. Hoffmann and A. Homeier and K. Hoshina and W. Huelsnitz and P. O. Hulth and K. Hultqvist and S. Hussain and A. Ishihara and E. Jacobi and J. Jacobsen and G. S. Japaridze and O. Jlelati and A. Kappes and T. Karg and A. Karle and J. Kiryluk and F. Kislat and J. Kläs and S. R. Klein and S. Klepser and J. -H. Köhne and G. Kohnen and H. Kolanoski and L. Köpke and C. Kopper and S. Kopper and D. J. Koskinen and M. Kowalski and M. Krasberg and G. Kroll and J. Kunnen and N. Kurahashi and T. Kuwabara and M. Labare and K. Laihem and H. Landsman and M. J. Larson and R. Lauer and M. Lesiak-Bzdak and J. Lünemann and J. Madsen and R. Maruyama and K. Mase and H. S. Matis and A. McDermott and F. McNally and K. Meagher and M. Merck and P. Mészáros and T. Meures and S. Miarecki and E. Middell and N. Milke and J. Miller and L. Mohrmann and T. Montaruli and R. Morse and S. M. Movit and R. Nahnhauer and U. Naumann and P. Nießen and S. C. Nowicki and D. R. Nygren and A. Obertacke and S. Odrowski and A. Olivas and M. Olivo and A. O'Murchadha and S. Panknin and L. Paul and J. A. Pepper and C. Pérez de los Heros and D. Pieloth and N. Pirk and J. Posselt and P. B. Price and G. T. Przybylski and L. Rädel and K. Rawlins and P. Redl and E. Resconi and W. Rhode and M. Ribordy and M. Richman and B. Riedel and J. P. Rodrigues and J. Roth and F. Rothmaier and C. Rott and C. Roucelle and T. Ruhe and B. Ruzybayev and D. Ryckbosch and S. M. Saba and T. Salameh and H. -G. Sander and M. Santander and S. Sarkar and K. Schatto and M. Scheel and F. Scheriau and T. Schmidt and M. Schmitz and S. Schoenen and S. Schöneberg and L. Schönherr and A. Schönwald and A. Schukraft and L. Schulte and O. Schulz and D. Seckel and S. H. Seo and Y. Sestayo and S. Seunarine and L. Shulman and M. W. E. Smith and M. Soiron and D. Soldin and G. M. Spiczak and C. Spiering and M. Stamatikos and T. Stanev and A. Stasik and T. Stezelberger and R. G. Stokstad and A. Stößl and S. Stoyanov and E. A. Strahler and R. Ström and K-H. Sulanke and G. W. Sullivan and H. Taavola and I. Taboada and A. Tamburro and S. Ter-Antonyan and S. Tilav and P. A. Toale and S. Toscano and M. Usner and D. van der Drift and N. van Eijndhoven and A. Van Overloop and J. van Santen and M. Vehring and M. Voge and C. Walck and T. Waldenmaier and M. Wallraff and M. Walter and R. Wasserman and Ch. Weaver and C. Wendt and S. Westerhoff and N. Whitehorn and K. Wiebe and C. H. Wiebusch and D. R. Williams and H. Wissing and M. Wolf and T. R. Wood and K. Woschnagg and C. Xu and D. L. Xu and X. W. Xu and J. P. Yanez and G. Yodh and S. Yoshida and P. Zarzhitsky and J. Ziemann and A. Zilles and M. Zoll},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1208.3430},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
12 pages, 16 figures