Study of quasielastic scattering using charged-current nu_mu-iron interactions in the MINOS Near Detector
Abstract
Kinematic distributions from an inclusive sample of 1.41 x 10^6 charged-current nu_mu interactions on iron, obtained using the MINOS Near Detector exposed to a wide-band beam with peak flux at 3 GeV, are compared to a conventional treatment of neutrino scattering within a Fermi gas nucleus. Results are used to guide the selection of a subsample enriched in quasielastic nu_mu Fe interactions, containing an estimated 123,000 quasielastic events of incident energies 1 < E_nu < 8 GeV, with <E_nu> = 2.79 GeV. Four additional subsamples representing topological and kinematic sideband regions to quasielastic scattering are also selected for the purpose of evaluating backgrounds. Comparisons using subsample distributions in four-momentum transfer Q^2 show the Monte Carlo model to be inadequate at low Q^2. Its shortcomings are remedied via inclusion of a Q^2-dependent suppression function for baryon resonance production, developed from the data. A chi-square fit of the resulting Monte Carlo simulation to the shape of the Q^2 distribution for the quasielastic-enriched sample is carried out with the axial-vector mass M_A of the dipole axial-vector form factor of the neutron as a free parameter. The effective M_A which best describes the data is 1.23 +0.13/-0.09 (fit) +0.12/-0.15 (syst.) GeV.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1410.8613,
title = {Study of quasielastic scattering using charged-current nu_mu-iron interactions in the MINOS Near Detector},
author = {P. Adamson and I. Anghel and A. Aurisano and G. Barr and M. Bishai and A. Blake and G. J. Bock and D. Bogert and S. V. Cao and C. M. Castromonte and S. Childress and J. A. B. Coelho and L. Corwin and D. Cronin-Hennessy and J. K. de Jong and A. V. Devan and N. E. Devenish and M. V. Diwan and C. O. Escobar and J. J. Evans and E. Falk and G. J. Feldman and M. V. Frohne and H. R. Gallagher and R. A. Gomes and M. C. Goodman and P. Gouffon and N. Graf and R. Gran and K. Grzelak and A. Habig and S. R. Hahn and J. Hartnell and R. Hatcher and A. Holin and J. Huang and J. Hylen and G. M. Irwin and Z. Isvan and C. James and D. Jensen and T. Kafka and S. M. S. Kasahara and G. Koizumi and M. Kordosky and A. Kreymer and K. Lang and J. Ling and P. J. Litchfield and P. Lucas and W. A. Mann and M. L. Marshak and N. Mayer and C. McGivern and M. M. Medeiros and R. Mehdiyev and J. R. Meier and M. D. Messier and W. H. Miller and S. R. Mishra and S. Moed Sher and C. D. Moore and L. Mualem and J. Musser and D. Naples and J. K. Nelson and H. B. Newman and R. J. Nichol and J. A. Nowak and J. O Connor and M. Orchanian and R. B. Pahlka and J. Paley and R. B. Patterson and G. Pawloski and A. Perch and M. Pfutzner and S. Phan-Budd and R. K. Plunkett and N. Poonthottathil and X. Qiu and A. Radovic and B. Rebel and C. Rosenfeld and H. A. Rubin and M. C. Sanchez and J. Schneps and A. Schreckenberger and P. Schreiner and R. Sharma and A. Sousa and N. Tagg and R. L. Talaga and J. Thomas and M. A. Thomson and X. Tian and A. Timmons and S. C. Tognini and R. Toner and D. Torretta and J. Urheim and P. Vahle and B. Viren and J. J. Walding and A. Weber and R. C. Webb and C. White and L. Whitehead and L. H. Whitehead and S. G. Wojcicki and R. Zwaska},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.8613},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
20 pages, 13 figures, 3 Tables Accepted for publication in PRD