From Raw Signals to DUNE Physics: Charge Readout and Reconstruction in ProtoDUNE

by Xuyang Ning (Brookhaven National Laboratory (US))

Monday 16 Nov 2026, 12:45 → 13:45 America/New_York

D-122 (P. Grannis Seminar Room)

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will study neutrino oscillations, search for nucleon decay, and observe neutrinos from a nearby core-collapse supernova. Its far detector must combine enormous target mass with precise particle imaging over energies from a few MeV to several GeV. ProtoDUNE tests full-size components for DUNE's first two liquid-argon far-detector modules at CERN. Its horizontal- and vertical-drift detectors exercise the far detector components, construction methods, readout, and reconstruction, while charged-particle beam data provide controlled samples for calibration and studies of hadron–argon interactions.

In this talk, I will first introduce DUNE's physics goals and the operating principles of a liquid-argon time projection chamber. I will then follow the path from ionization charge to a physics-ready event: low-noise electronics immersed in liquid argon, noise mitigation and signal processing, and the Wire-Cell techniques that transform signals from 3 strip views into 3D images, match them to the scintillation light, and then fit particle trajectories and identify the particles. I will conclude with the physics opportunities in the ProtoDUNE data and how these studies will benefit DUNE's physics program.