Abstract: Measurements of electrons from ?e interactions are crucial for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) neutrino oscillation program, as well as searches for physics beyond the standard model, supernova neutrino detection, and solar neutrino measurements. This article describes the selection and reconstruction of low-energy (Michel) electrons in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector. ProtoDUNE-SP is one of the prototypes for the DUNE far detector, built and operated at CERN as a charged particle test beam experiment. A sample of low-energy electrons produced by the decay of cosmic muons is selected with a purity of 95%. This sample is used to calibrate the low-energy electron energy scale with two techniques. An electron energy calibration based on a cosmic ray muon sample uses calibration constants derived from measured and simulated cosmic ray muon events. Another calibration technique makes use of the theoretically well-understood Michel electron energy spectrum to convert reconstructed charge to electron energy. In addition, the effects of detector response to low-energy electron energy scale and its resolution including readout electronics threshold effects are quantified. Finally, the relation between the theoretical and reconstructed low-energy electron energy spectra is derived, and the energy resolution is characterized. The low-energy electron selection presented here accounts for about 75% of the total electron deposited energy. After the addition of lost energy using a Monte Carlo simulation, the energy resolution improves from about 40% to 25% at 50 MeV. These results are used to validate the expected capabilities of the DUNE far detector to reconstruct low-energy electrons.

Abstract: The gauge bosons of the Pati-Salam model do not mediate proton decay at the renormalizable level, and for this reason it is possible to construct scenarios in which SU(4) (R) SU(2)R is broken at relatively low scales. In this paper we show that such low-scale models generate dimension-five operators that can give rise to nucleon decays at unacceptably large rates, even if the operators are suppressed by the Planck scale. We find an interesting complementarity between the nucleon-decay limits and the usual meson-decay constraints. Furthermore, we argue that these operators are generically present when the model is embedded into SO(10), lowering the suppression scale. Under reasonable assumptions, the lower limit on the breaking scale can be constrained to be as high as O(108) GeV.

Abstract: In this work we present an attempt to describe the X1(2900) found by the LHCb collaboration, in the experimental data on the invariant mass spectrum of D-K+, as a three-meson molecular state of the KpD over line system. We discuss that the interactions in all the subsystems are attractive in nature, with the pD over line interaction generating over line D1(2420) and the Kp resonating as K1(1270). We find that the system can form a three-body state but with a mass higher than that of X1(2900). We investigate the KpD system too, finding that the three-body dynamics generates an isoscalar state, which can be related to D*s1(2860), and an exotic isovector state. This latter state has a mass similar to that of the X0(2900) and X1(2900) states found by LHCb, but a very small width (similar to 7.4 +/- 0.9 MeV) and necessarily requires more than two quarks to describe its properties. We hope that our findings will encourage experimental investigations of the isovector KpD state. Finally, in the pursuit of finding a description for X1(2900), we study the K over line K*D* system where over line K*D* forms 0+, 1+, and 2+ states. We do not find a state that can be associated with X1(2900).