Measurements of the inclusive neutrino and antineutrino charged current cross sections in MINERvA using the low- ν flux method

Abstract

The total cross sections are important ingredients for the current and future neutrino oscillation experiments. We present measurements of the total charged-current neutrino and antineutrino cross sections on scintillator (CH) in the NuMI low-energy beamline using an in situ prediction of the shape of the flux as a function of neutrino energy from 2-50 GeV. This flux prediction takes advantage of the fact that neutrino and antineutrino interactions with low nuclear recoil energy (ν) have a nearly constant cross section as a function of incident neutrino energy. This measurement is the lowest energy application of the low-ν flux technique, the first time it has been used in the NuMI antineutrino beam configuration, and demonstrates that the technique is applicable to future neutrino beams operating at multi-GeV energies. The cross section measurements presented are the most precise measurements to date below 5 GeV.

Neutrino-electron elastic scattering for flux determination at the DUNE oscillation experiment

“…For example, at E ν 1 GeV, the neutrino interaction cross section for events with low energy transfer, ν, is roughly constant with neutrino energy. This way to measure flux, referred to as the "low-ν" technique, has been used to study total and deep-inelastic neutrino cross sections as a function of neutrino energies [4][5][6][7][8][9]. However, the DUNE first and second oscillation maxima occur at ∼2.5 GeV and ∼0.8 GeV, respectively.…”

Theory of elastic neutrino-electron scattering

“…The corresponding Figures for MINERvA [19,20,[134][135][136], NOvA [137], and T2K [138,139] experiments are shown in Figures 15-20. The difference between the electron and electromagnetic energy spectra slightly washes out after averaging over the typical neutrino flux.…”

Measurement of the antineutrino to neutrino charged-current interaction cross section ratio in MINERvA

“…is the fiducial event rate and is tabulated below. To obtain the incident beam flux, we employ the "low-ν" method described previously [4,6,25,26]. In brief, the differential dependence of the cross section in terms of ν is expanded in ν/E as…”

“…The results presented here use neutrino and antineutrino events analyzed in the MIN-ERvA scintillator (CH) detector exposed to the NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam. Total cross sections are extracted from selected charged-current (CC) event samples, and incident fluxes are measured in situ using a sub-sample of these events at low-ν (ν is the energy transfered to the hadronic system) as in our previous result [4]. The ratio, R CC , is obtained by forming ratios of measured event rates in the two beam modes.…”

“…We have previously reported an inclusive CC cross section measurement [4] using the same data sample and method to constrain the flux shape with energy. The results presented here use an updated cross-section model which has been tuned to improve agreement with our data in the low-ν region [15] as described in Sec.…”