Simultaneous measurement of proton and lepton kinematics in quasielastic-like ν_μ-hydrocarbon interactions from 2 to 20 GeV

2022/03/14 by The MINERvA Collaboration, Ruterbories, D., Akhter, S. +71
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle accelerators and beam dynamics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2203.08022

openalex publication_date 2022/03/14 · openalex created_date 2022/04/15 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Neutrino charged-current quasielastic-like scattering, a reaction category extensively used in neutrino oscillation measurements, probes nuclear effects that govern neutrino-nucleus interactions. This Letter reports the first measurement of the triple-differential cross section for ν_μ quasielastic-like reactions using the hydrocarbon medium of the MINERvA detector exposed to a wide-band beam spanning 2 ≤ E_ν≤ 20 GeV. The measurement maps the correlations among transverse and longitudinal muon momenta and summed proton kinetic energies, and compares them to predictions from a state-of-art simulation. Discrepancies are observed that likely reflect shortfalls with modeling of pion and nucleon intranuclear scattering and/or spectator nucleon ejection from struck nuclei. The separate determination of leptonic and hadronic variables can inform experimental approaches to neutrino-energy estimation.

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