Paper

First double-differential cross section measurement of neutral-current \\(\\pi^0\\) production in neutrino-argon scattering in the MicroBooNE detector

Duffy, K, Shaevitz, M H, Asaadi, J, Babu, S Mulleria, Usher, T, Kamp, N, Wei, H, D Andrade Aldana, X Ji, Yang, T, Moore, C D, Martynenko, S, Mendez, J, Kreslo, I, Fine, R, Blake, A, Pate, S F, Djurcic, Z, Scanavini, G, Diurba, R, Mohayai, T, Moor, A F, Paolone, V, Basque, V, Mooney, M, Rosenberg, M, Seligman, W, Bolton, T, Englezos, P, Jwa, Y J, Guzowski, P, eman, W, Ismail, M S, Johnson, R A, Piasetzky, E, Kalra, D, Pallat, N, Viren, B, Garcia-Gamez, D, L Gu, Tyler, J, Wospakrik, M, Navrer-Agasson, A, Totani, D, Yandel, E, Papavassiliou, V, Arellano, L, Marsden, D, Soderberg, M, Balasubramanian, S, Barr, G, Dorrill, R, Imani, Z, W Wu, Qian, X, Wresilo, K, Ren, L, Wang, J, Y -T Tsai, Hen, O, O Benevides Rodrigues, Cross, R, Oza, N, G Ge, Taniuchi, N, Abratenko, P, Berkman, S, Bhanderi, A, Kobilarcik, T, Chappell, A, Convery, M, W Gu, Littlejohn, B R, Meddage, V, Szelc, A M, Torbunov, D, Ereditato, A, Nayak, N, Horton-Smith, G A, Liu, H, Cerati, G, Zhang, C, Cooper-Troendle, L, Rochester, L, Mistry, K, Sharankova, R, Franco, D, Gollapinni, S, Thorpe, C, McConkey, N, Schukraft, A, Weber, M, Hilgenberg, C, Wongjirad, T, Greenlee, H, Spitz, J, Zennamo, J, Bateman, J, Trettin, A, Book

2024

Overview

We report the first double-differential cross section measurement of neutral-current neutral pion (NC\\(\\pi^0\\)) production in neutrino-argon scattering, as well as single-differential measurements of the same channel in terms of final states with and without protons. The kinematic variables of interest for these measurements are the \\(\\pi^0\\) momentum and the \\(\\pi^0\\) scattering angle with respect to the neutrino beam. A total of 4971 candidate NC\\(\\pi^0\\) events fully-contained within the MicroBooNE detector are selected using data collected at a mean neutrino energy of \\(\\sim 0.8\\)~GeV from \\(6.4\\times10^{20}\\) protons on target from the Booster Neutrino Beam at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. After extensive data-driven model validation to ensure unbiased unfolding, the Wiener-SVD method is used to extract nominal flux-averaged cross sections. The results are compared to predictions from commonly used neutrino event generators, which tend to overpredict the measured NC\\(\\pi^0\\) cross section, especially in the 0.2-0.5~GeV/c \\(\\pi^0\\) momentum range and at forward scattering angles. Events with at least one proton present in the final state are also underestimated. This data will help improve the modeling of NC\\(\\pi^0\\) production, which represents a major background in measurements of charge-parity violation in the neutrino sector and in searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model.

• Publisher: Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
• Subject: Argon / Cross-sections / Form factors / Forward scattering / Kinematics / Momentum / Neutrino beams / Neutrinos / Pions / Protons / Quarks / Scattering angle / Standard model (particle physics)