Measurement of the longitudinal diffusion of ionization electrons in the MicroBooNE detector

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Accurate knowledge of electron transport properties is vital to understanding the information provided by liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). Ionization electron drift-lifetime, local electric field distortions caused by positive ion accumulation, and electron diffusion can all significantly impact the measured signal waveforms. This paper presents a measurement of the effective longitudinal electron diffusion coefficient, D<jats:sub>L</jats:sub>, in MicroBooNE at the nominal electric field strength of 273.9 V/cm. Historically, this measurement has been made in LArTPC prototype detectors. This represents the first measurement in a large-scale (85 tonne active volume) LArTPC operating in a neutrino beam. This is the largest dataset ever used for this measurement. Using a sample of ∼70,000 through-going cosmic ray muon tracks tagged with MicroBooNE's cosmic ray tagger system, we measure D<jats:sub>L</jats:sub> = 3.74<jats:sup>+0.28</jats:sup> <jats:sub>-0.29</jats:sub> cm<jats:sup>2</jats:sup>/s.</jats:p>