NuIntBibby César Jesús Valls
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MINERvA · 2016

Evidence for Neutral-Current Diffractive π0\pi^0 Production from Hydrogen in Neutrino Interactions on Hydrocarbon

Phys.Rev.Lett. 117 111801 · 10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.111801

arXiv:1604.01728JournalINSPIREAll papers

Measurements

CurrentFlavorTargetTopologyTypeObservablesEnergy
NCνμCHNC1π0totaltotal cross sectionE: ~4.5GeV, focus on diffractive production

Abstract

The MINERvA experiment observes an excess of events containing electromagnetic showers relative to the expectation from Monte Carlo simulations in neutral-current neutrino interactions with mean beam energy of 4.5 GeV on a hydrocarbon target. The excess is characterized and found to be consistent with neutral-current neutral pion production with a broad energy distribution peaking at 7 GeV and a total cross section of 0.26 +- 0.02 (stat) +- 0.08 (sys) x 10⁻³⁹ cm². The angular distribution, electromagnetic shower energy, and spatial distribution of the energy depositions of the excess are consistent with expectations from neutrino neutral-current diffractive neutral pion production from hydrogen in the hydrocarbon target. These data comprise the first direct experimental observation and constraint for a reaction that poses an important background process in neutrino oscillation experiments searching for muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations.

Citation

@article{MINERvA:2016uck,
    author = "Wolcott, J. and others",
    collaboration = "MINERvA",
    title = "{Evidence for Neutral-Current Diffractive $\pi^0$ Production from Hydrogen in Neutrino Interactions on Hydrocarbon}",
    eprint = "1604.01728",
    archivePrefix = "arXiv",
    primaryClass = "hep-ex",
    reportNumber = "FERMILAB-PUB-16-108-ND",
    doi = "10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.111801",
    journal = "Phys. Rev. Lett.",
    volume = "117",
    number = "11",
    pages = "111801",
    year = "2016"
}