Single neutral pion production via muon antineutrino charged-current interactions in plastic scintillator (CH) is studied using the \minerva detector exposed to the NuMI low-energy, wideband antineutrino beam at Fermilab. Measurement of this process constrains models of neutral pion production in nuclei, which is important because the neutral-current analog is a background for $\bar{\nu}_e$ appearance oscillation experiments. The differential cross sections for $\pi^0$ momentum and production angle, for events with a single observed $\pi^0$ and no charged pions, are presented and compared to model predictions. These results comprise the first measurement of the $\pi^0$ kinematics for this process.
Two different nuclear-medium effects are isolated using a low three-momentum transfer subsample of neutrino-carbon scattering data from the MINERvA neutrino experiment. The observed hadronic energy in charged-current $\nu_\mu$ interactions is combined with muon kinematics to permit separation of the quasielastic and $\Delta$(1232) resonance processes. First, we observe a small cross section at very low energy transfer that matches the expected screening effect of long-range nucleon correlations. Second, additions to the event rate in the kinematic region between the quasielastic and $\Delta$ resonance processes are needed to describe the data. The data in this kinematic region also has an enhanced population of multi-proton final states. Contributions predicted for scattering from a nucleon pair have both properties; the model tested in this analysis is a significant improvement but does not fully describe the data. We present the results as a double-differential cross section to enable further investigation of nuclear models. Improved description of the effects of the nuclear environment are required by current and future neutrino oscillation experiments.
Nucleon structure functions obtained from neutrino and anti-neutrino scattering on iron nuclei at high energies (Ev=30 to 250 GeV) are presented. These results are compared with the results of other lepton-nucleon scattering experiments. The structure functions are used to test the validity of the Gross-Llewellyn-smith sum rule, which measures the number of valence quarks in the nucleons, and to obtain leading and second order QCD fits.
Measurements of flux-normalized neutrino and antineutrino total charged-current cross sections (σ) in the energy range 45<E<205 GeV are presented. We see no evidence for the anomalous sharp rise in σν¯σν reported by earlier authors. The neutrino cross section rises linearly with energy and with σE about 18% smaller than other measurements below 10 GeV. The average antineutrino slope at 55 GeV is consistent with measurements at low energy; however, a (20 ± 10)% increase is indicated over our energy range.
We present results on flux-normalized neutrino and antineutrino cross sections near y=0 from data obtained in the Fermilab narrow-band beam. We conclude that values of σ0=dσdy|y=0 are consistent with rising linearly with energy over the range 45<~Eν<~20.5 GeV. The separate averages of ν and ν¯, each measured to 4%, are equal to well within the errors. The best fit for the combined data gives σ0E=(0.719±0.035)×10−38 cm2/GeV at an average Eν of 100 GeV.
We present measured hadron energy distributions for the reactions ν(ν¯)+N→ν(ν¯)+hadrons at high energy, as well as for the similar charged-current interactions. Insofar as possible, the determination of these distributions avoids any a priori assumptions about either the neutral-current or the charged-current interactions. We further analyze the neutral-current distributions within the framework of specific models, particularly the scaling model, to obtain a positive-helicity component P=0.36±0.10, which lies between pure V−A and pure V or A, and a coupling strength of g0=0.31±0.03 relative to the charged-current interaction. These coupling parameters agree well with the predictions of the Weinberg-Salam model with sin2θW=0.33±0.07.
The largest sample ever recorded of $\numub$ charged-current quasi-elastic (CCQE, $\numub + p \to \mup + n$) candidate events is used to produce the minimally model-dependent, flux-integrated double-differential cross section $\frac{d^{2}\sigma}{dT_\mu d\uz}$ for $\numub$ incident on mineral oil. This measurement exploits the unprecedented statistics of the MiniBooNE anti-neutrino mode sample and provides the most complete information of this process to date. Also given to facilitate historical comparisons are the flux-unfolded total cross section $\sigma(E_\nu)$ and single-differential cross section $\frac{d\sigma}{d\qsq}$ on both mineral oil and on carbon by subtracting the $\numub$ CCQE events on hydrogen. The observed cross section is somewhat higher than the predicted cross section from a model assuming independently-acting nucleons in carbon with canonical form factor values. The shape of the data are also discrepant with this model. These results have implications for intra-nuclear processes and can help constrain signal and background processes for future neutrino oscillation measurements.
We report a measurement of the electroweak parameters sin2θw and ϱ based on the ratios of neutral current to charged current events measured in the Fermilab narrow-band neutrino beam at energies of 30–240 GeV. The data are fully corrected for radiative effects, heavy-quark production, and other effects. The best value for sin2θw obtained, sin2θw=0.239±0.011, is consistent with the most recent values fromW andZ production, as well as from other neutrino experiments.
Structure functions obtained from high energy neutrino and antineutrino scattering from an iron target are presented. These were extracted from the combined data of Fermilab experiments E616 and E701; these utilized narrow band beam runs between 1979–1982. The structure functions are used to test the validity of quarkparton model (QPM) predictions and to extract the QCD scale parameter Λ from fits to the Altarelli-Parisi equations.
This paper reports on measurements of the total cross section for the inclusive reaction vμ+N, as a function of incident energy. Neutrinos and antineutrinos with energy in the range 3