High-Statistics Measurement of Neutrino Quasielasticlike Scattering at 6 GeV on a Hydrocarbon Target

Carneiro M.F.; Ruterbories D.; Ahmad Dar Z.; Akbar F.; Andrade D.A.; Ascencio M.V.; Badgett W.; Bashyal A.; Bercellie A.; Betancourt M.; Bonin K.; Bravar A.; Budd H.; Caceres G.; Cai T.; Da Motta H.; Díaz G.A.; Felix J.; Fields L.; Filkins A.; Fine R.; Gago A.M.; Ghosh A.; Gran R.; Hahn D.; Harris D.A.; Henry S.; Hylen J.; Jena S.; Jena D.; Joe C.; King B.; Kleykamp J.; Kordosky M.; Last D.; Le T.; Leclerc J.; Lozano A.; Lu X.-G.; Maher E.; Manly S.; Mann W.A.; McFarland K.S.; McGivern C.L.; McGowan A.M.; Messerly B.; Miller J.; Morfín J.G.; Murphy M.; Naples D.; Nelson J.K.; Nguyen C.; Norrick A.; Olivier A.; Paolone V.; Perdue G.N.; Riehecky P.; Schellman H.; Schlabach P.; Solano Salinas C.J.; Su H.; Sultana M.; Syrotenko V.S.; Torretta D.; Wret C.; Yaeggy B.; Yonehara K.; Zazueta L. · Physical Review Letters (2020) · DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.124.121801

Resumen

We measure neutrino charged-current quasielasticlike scattering on hydrocarbon at high statistics using the wideband Neutrinos at the Main Injector beam with neutrino energy peaked at 6 GeV. The double-differential cross section is reported in terms of muon longitudinal (p) and transverse (p) momentum. Cross section contours versus lepton momentum components are approximately described by a conventional generator-based simulation, however, discrepancies are observed for transverse momenta above 0.5 GeV/c for longitudinal momentum ranges 3-5 and 9-20 GeV/c. The single differential cross section versus momentum transfer squared (dσ/dQQE2) is measured over a four-decade range of Q2 that extends to 10 GeV2. The cross section turnover and falloff in the Q2 range 0.3-10 GeV2 is not fully reproduced by generator predictions that rely on dipole form factors. Our measurement probes the axial-vector content of the hadronic current and complements the electromagnetic form factor data obtained using electron-nucleon elastic scattering. These results help oscillation experiments because they probe the importance of various correlations and final-state interaction effects within the nucleus, which have different effects on the visible energy in detectors.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería