2019/10/31 by K. Abe, R. Akutsu, A. Ali +330 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.100.112009
published as Phys. Rev. D 100, 112009 (2019) · 19 pages, 16 figures, 4 tables
arxiv created 2019/11/29 · arxiv updated 2020/01/08
Neutrino- and antineutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielastic-like interactions are measured at Super-Kamiokande using nuclear de-excitation γ-rays to identify signal-like interactions in data from a 14.94 (16.35)× 1020 protons-on-target exposure of the T2K neutrino (antineutrino) beam. The measured flux-averaged cross sections on oxygen nuclei are ⟨ σ_ν\rm -NCQE ⟩ = 1.70 ± 0.17 (\rm stat.) ^+ \rm 0.51_- \rm 0.38 (\rm syst.) × 10-38 \rm cm2/oxygen with a flux-averaged energy of 0.82 GeV and ⟨ σ_ν \rm -NCQE ⟩ = 0.98 ± 0.16 (\rm stat.) ^+ \rm 0.26_- \rm 0.19 (\rm syst.) × 10-38 \rm cm2/oxygen with a flux-averaged energy of 0.68 GeV, for neutrinos and antineutrinos, respectively. These results are the most precise to date, and the antineutrino result is the first cross section measurement of this channel. They are compared with various theoretical predictions. The impact on evaluation of backgrounds to searches for supernova relic neutrinos at present and future water Cherenkov detectors is also discussed.