Measurement of the Inclusive Electron Neutrino Charged Current Cross Section on Carbon with the T2K Near Detector

Abstract

The T2K off-axis near detector, ND280, is used to make the first differential cross-section measurements of electron neutrino charged current interactions at energies ~1 GeV as a function of electron momentum, electron scattering angle and four-momentum transfer of the interaction. The total flux-averaged $\hat{I}{½}_e$ charged current cross-section on carbon is measured to be $1.11\pm 0.09(stat)\pm 0.18(syst)\times 10^{-38}c{m}^2/nucleon$. The differential and total cross-section measurements agree with the predictions of two leading neutrino interaction generators, NEUT and GENIE. The NEUT prediction is $1.23\times 10^{-38}c{m}^2/nucleon$ and the GENIE prediction is $1.08\times 10^{-38}c{m}^2/nucleon$. The total $\hat{I}{½}_e$ charged current cross-section result is also in agreement with data from the Gargamelle experiment.

Submitted to PRL. Please see http://t2k-experiment.org/results/nd280-nue-xs-2014 for the data releated to these results