Constraining the Neutral Current π⁰ Background for MicroBooNE's Single-Photon Search

Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) are a rising technology in the field of experimental neutrino physics due to their exceptional calorimetric and position resolution capabilities. In particular, their ability to distinguish electrons from photons is crucial for current and future neutrino oscillation experiments. The MicroBooNE experiment is utilizing LArTPC technology to investigate the MiniBooNE low-energy excess, which could be either electron-like or photon-like in nature. On the photon-like side, MicroBooNE is searching for single-photon events, the most common of which is the neutral current (NC) Δ radiative decay. However, this search is marred by the significantly more common NC π⁰ decay mode of the Δ. In this talk, I present my work in constraining this NC π⁰ background. Using a modified version of the single-photon analysis framework, we instead select two-photon events which are characteristic of the NC π⁰ topology. The selected sample is then used as a sideband to constrain the systematic uncertainty on the NC Δ radiative decay measurement.