Theoretical study of neutrino-induced coherent pion production off nuclei at T2K and MiniBooNE energies

Abstract

We have developed a model for neutrino-induced coherent pion production off nuclei in the energy regime of interest for present and forthcoming neutrino oscillation experiments. It is based on a microscopic model for pion production off the nucleon that, besides the dominant Delta pole contribution, takes into account the effect of background terms required by chiral symmetry. Moreover, the model uses a reduced nucleon-to-Delta resonance axial coupling, which leads to coherent pion production cross sections around a factor two smaller than most of the previous theoretical estimates. In the coherent production, the main nuclear effects, namely medium corrections on the Delta propagator and the final pion distortion, are included. We have improved on previous similar models by taking into account the nucleon motion and employing a more sophisticated optical potential. As found in previous calculations the modification of the Delta self-energy inside the nuclear medium strongly reduces the cross section, while the final pion distortion mainly shifts the peak position to lower pion energies. The angular distribution profiles are not much affected by nuclear effects. Nucleon motion increases the cross section by 15% at neutrino energies of 650 MeV, while Coulomb effects on charged pions are estimated to be small. Finally, we discuss at length the deficiencies of the Rein-Sehgal pion coherent production model for neutrino energies below 2 GeV, and in particular for the MiniBooNE and T2K experiments. We also predict flux averaged cross sections for these two latter experiments and K2K.

19 latex pages, 10 figures, 2 tables. Minor changes. Version accepted for publication in Physical Review D

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• Neutrino Induced Coherent Pion Production off Nuclei and PCAC
• Coherent Neutrinoproduction of Photons and Pions in a Chiral Effective Field Theory for Nuclei
• Coherent pion production off nuclei at T2K and MiniBooNE energies revisited
• Neutrino Interactions with Matter and the MiniBooNE anomaly
• Measurement of single ${\pi }^0$ production by coherent neutral-current $\nu$ Fe interactions in the MINOS Near Detector
• Summary of Workshop on Common Neutrino Event Generator Tools
• Isovector Axial Vector Form Factors of Octet-Decuplet Hyperon Transition in QCD
• Neutrino Induced Charged Current Coherent Pion Production for Constraining the Muon Neutrino Flux at DUNE
• Coherent pion production in neutrino (anti-neutrino)-nucleus interaction