Neutron measurements from anti-neutrino hydrocarbon reactions

Abstract

Charged-current anti-neutrino interactions on hydrocarbon scintillator in the MINERvA detector are used to study activity from their final-state neutrons. To ensure that most of the neutrons are from the primary interaction, rather than hadronic reinteractions in the detector, the sample is limited to momentum transfers below 0.8 GeV/c. From 16,129 interactions, 15,246 neutral particle candidates are observed. The reference simulation predicts 64\% of these candidates are due to neutrons from the anti-neutrino interaction directly, but also overpredicts the number of candidates by 15\% overall, which is beyond the standard uncertainty estimates for models of neutrino interactions and neutron propagation in the detector. Using the measured distributions for energy deposition, time of flight, position, and speed, we explore the sensitivity to the details those two aspects of the models. We also use multiplicity distributions to evaluate the presence of a two-nucleon knockout process. These results provide critical new information toward a complete description of the hadronic final state of neutrino interactions, which is vital to neutrino oscillation experiments.

arXiv comment22 pages, 11 figures, synchronized to incorporate journal reviewer's comments

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Cited by in corpus (14)

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• A new method for an improved anti-neutrino energy reconstruction with charged-current interactions in next-generation detectors
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• A substandard candle: the low-$\nu$ method at few-GeV neutrino energies
• Demonstration of neutron identification in neutrino interactions in the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber
• Measurement of neutron production in atmospheric neutrino interactions at Super-Kamiokande
• Comparison of Validation Methods of Simulations for Final State Interactions in Hadron Production Experiments
• Benchmarks and applications of the nuclear deexcitation event generator NucDeEx
• Benchmarking intra-nuclear cascade models for neutrino scattering with relativistic optical potentials
• Measurement of the Multi-Neutron ${\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }$ Charged Current Differential Cross Section at Low Available Energy on Hydrocarbon