Past exam of the particle physics course of the University of Oxford / 2016 / 7 / 4

A large, optically clean water Cherenkov detector provides many protons, a transparent radiator and a relatively inexpensive homogeneous target. A surrounding array of inward-facing photomultipliers records hit times and charge. Reconstructing the vertex and cone intersections identifies track directions and visible energies; an outer active veto rejects entering particles. Water has refractive index near $1.33$, and the charged decay products are above its relevant thresholds.

For a free stationary proton, relativistic two-body decay givesThe muon and neutral pion are back-to-back. The pion decays essentially at the vertex into two gamma rays: $c{\tau }_{{\pi }^0}\simeq 2.4\times 10^{-8}\mathrm{m}$ before its modest Lorentz factor is included. Each gamma ray converts and initiates an electromagnetic shower, producing a diffuse ring. The muon gives a relatively sharp ring and, if it stops, a delayed Michel Positron on the $2.2\mathrm{microsecond}$ scale. The ideal topology therefore has one muon-like and two electron-like rings, although overlaps or a weak photon may merge or hide a ring.

Require the two-photon invariant mass to match $m_{{\pi }^0}$, the total reconstructed mass to match $m_p$, and small total momentum. Bound oxygen protons have Fermi motion and their hadronic products can rescatter, so those cuts need realistic nuclear corrections; the water target also contains free hydrogen protons. Install the detector deep underground to suppress cosmic-ray muons, with shielding and an active veto. Important irreducible backgrounds are atmospheric-neutrino interactions producing a muon and neutral pion, potentially with an undetected recoil nucleon.