Nuclear Target Cross Section Ratios at MINERvA

Abstract

Measurements of ${\nu }_{\mu }$ inclusive charged-current cross section ratios on carbon, iron, and lead relative to scintillator are presented. Data for the analysis were collected by the fine-grained MINERvA detector in the NuMI beamline at Fermilab. This is the first direct measurement of nuclear dependence in neutrino scattering. The ratios show a depletion at low Bjorken $x$ and enhancement at large $x$, both of which increase with the nucleon number of the target. The data exhibit trends not found in GENIE, a standard neutrino-nucleus event generator, or alternative models of nuclear modification to inelastic structure functions.

Contribution to the proceedings of the 49th Rencontres de Moriond on QCD and High Energy Interactions, La Thuile, Italy, March 2014

References in corpus (3)

• Event Excess in the MiniBooNE Search for ${\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }\to {\bar{\nu }}_e$ Oscillations
• Measurement of Ratios of ${\nu }_{\mu }$ Charged-Current Cross Sections on C, Fe, and Pb to CH at Neutrino Energies 2-20 GeV
• Axial and Vector Structure Functions for Electron- and Neutrino- Nucleon Scattering Cross Sections at all $Q^2$ using Effective Leading order Parton Distribution Functions