Proton Transparency and Neutrino Physics: New Methods and Modeling
Abstract
Extracting accurate results from neutrino oscillation and cross section experiments requires accurate simulation of the neutrino-nucleus interaction. The rescattering of outgoing hadrons (final state interactions) by the rest of the nucleus is an important component of these interactions. We present a new measurement of proton transparency (defined as the fraction of outgoing protons that emerge without significant rescattering) using electron-nucleus scattering data recorded by the CLAS detector at Jefferson Laboratory on helium, carbon, and iron targets. This analysis by the Electrons for Neutrinos () collaboration uses a new data-driven method to extract the transparency. It defines transparency as the ratio of electron-scattering events with a detected proton to quasi-elastic electron-scattering events where a proton should have been knocked out. Our results are consistent with previous measurements that determined the transparency from the ratio of measured events to theoretically predicted events. We find that the GENIE event generator, which is widely used by oscillation experiments to simulate neutrino-nucleus interactions, needs to better describe both the nuclear ground state and proton rescattering in order to reproduce our measured transparency ratios, especially at lower proton momenta.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2508.01905,
title = {Proton Transparency and Neutrino Physics: New Methods and Modeling},
author = {S. Dytman and M. Betancourt and N. Steinberg and L. B. Weinstein and A. Ashkenazi and J. Tena-Vidal and A. Papadopoulou and G. Chambers-Wall and J. Smith and P. Achenbach and J. S. Alvarado and M. J. Amaryan and H. Atac and L. Baashen and N. A. Baltzell and L. Barion and M. Bashkanov and M. Battaglieri and F. Benmokhtar and A. Bianconi and A. S. Biselli and M. Bondi and F. Bossu and S. Boiarinov and K. -Th. Brinkmann and W. J. Briscoe and W. K. Brooks and S. Bueltmann and V. D. Burkert and T. Cao and R. Capobianco and D. S. Carman and J. C. Carvajal and P. Chatagnon and V. Chesnokov and H. Chinchay and G. Ciullo and P. L. Cole and M. Contalbrigo and A. DAngelo and N. Dashyan and R. De Vita and M. Defurne and A. Deur and S. Diehl and C. Djalali and R. Dupre and H. Egiyan and A. El Alaoui and L. El Fassi and L. Elouadrhiri and M. Farooq and S. Fegan and I. P. Fernando and A. Filippi and G. Gavalian and G. P. Gilfoyle and R. W. Gothe and L. Guo and K. Hafidi and H. Hakobyan and M. Hattawy and F. Hauenstein and T. B. Hayward and D. Heddle and A. Hobart and M. Holtrop and Yu-Chun Hung and Y. Ilieva and D. G. Ireland and E. L. Isupov and H. Jiang and H. S. Jo and S. Joosten and M. Khandaker and A. Kim and W. Kim and F. J. Klein and V. Klimenko and A. Kripko and V. Kubarovsky and S. E. Kuhn and L. Lanza and P. Lenisa and D. Marchand and V. Mascagna and D. Matamoros and B. McKinnon and T. Mineeva and M. Mirazita and V. Mokeev and C. Munoz Camacho and P. Nadel-Turonski and T. Nagorna and K. Neupane and D. Nguyen and S. Niccolai and M. Osipenko and L. L. Pappalardo and R. Paremuzyan and E. Pasyuk and S. J. Paul and W. Phelps and N. Pilleux and S. Polcher Rafael and J. W. Price and Y. Prok and T. Reed and J. Richards and M. Ripani and J. Ritman and A. A. Rusova and S. Schadmand and A. Schmidt and R. A. Schumacher and M. B. C. Scott and Y. G. Sharabian and E. V. Shirokov and S. Shrestha and N. Sparveris and M. Spreafico and S. Stepanyan and I. Strakovsky and S. Strauch and J. A. Tan and M. Tenorio and N. Trotta and R. Tyson and M. Ungaro and D. W. Upton and S. Vallarino and L. Venturelli and T. Vittorini and H. Voskanyan and E. Voutier and Y. Wang and D. P. Watts and U. Weerasinghe and X. Wei and M. H. Wood and L. Xu and N. Zachariou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.01905},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
22 pages, 21 figures