Measurement of neutrino and antineutrino neutral-current quasielastic-like interactions on oxygen by detecting nuclear de-excitation $\gamma$-rays

Abstract

Neutrino- and antineutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielastic-like interactions are measured at Super-Kamiokande using nuclear de-excitation $\gamma$-rays to identify signal-like interactions in data from a $14.94(16.35)\times 10^{20}$ protons-on-target exposure of the T2K neutrino (antineutrino) beam. The measured flux-averaged cross sections on oxygen nuclei are $⟨{\sigma }_{\nu -\mathrm{NCQE}}⟩=1.70\pm 0.17(stat.{)}_{-0.38}^{+0.51}(syst.)\times 10^{-38}\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^2/oxygen$ with a flux-averaged energy of 0.82 GeV and $⟨{\sigma }_{\bar{\nu }-\mathrm{NCQE}}⟩=0.98\pm 0.16(stat.{)}_{-0.19}^{+0.26}(syst.)\times 10^{-38}\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^2/oxygen$ with a flux-averaged energy of 0.68 GeV, for neutrinos and antineutrinos, respectively. These results are the most precise to date, and the antineutrino result is the first cross section measurement of this channel. They are compared with various theoretical predictions. The impact on evaluation of backgrounds to searches for supernova relic neutrinos at present and future water Cherenkov detectors is also discussed.

19 pages, 16 figures, 4 tables

References in corpus (13)

• Solar neutrino measurements in Super-Kamiokande-II
• A new parameterization of the nucleon elastic form factors
• The T2K Neutrino Flux Prediction
• Measurement of neutrino and antineutrino oscillations by the T2K experiment including a new additional sample of ${\nu }_e$ interactions at the far detector
• Light dark matter in neutrino beams: production modelling and scattering signatures at MiniBooNE, T2K and SHiP
• Progress and open questions in the physics of neutrino cross sections
• Signatures of sub-GeV dark matter beams at neutrino experiments
• Search for active-sterile neutrino mixing using neutral-current interactions in NOvA
• Superscaling and neutral current quasielastic neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Search for light sterile neutrinos with the T2K far detector Super-Kamiokande at a baseline of 295 km
• Design and performance of the muon monitor for the T2K neutrino oscillation experiment
• Measurement of neutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasi-elastic cross section using atmospheric neutrinos at Super-Kamiokande
• Measurement of ${\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }$ and ${\nu }_{\mu }$ charged current inclusive cross sections and their ratio with the T2K off-axis near detector

Cited by in corpus (14)

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• Evidence of Antineutrinos from Distant Reactors using Pure Water at SNO+
• Double-Hit Signature of Millicharged Particles in 3D segmented neutrino detector
• Diffuse Neutrino Flux Based on the Rates of Core-collapse Supernovae and Black Hole Formation Deduced from a Novel Galactic Chemical Evolution Model
• Exploring the Fate of Stellar Core Collapse with Supernova Relic Neutrinos
• Measuring Oscillations with A Million Atmospheric Neutrinos
• First Detailed Calculation of Atmospheric Neutrino Foregrounds to the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background in Super-Kamiokande
• Impacts of Black-Hole-Forming Supernova Explosions on the Diffuse Neutrino Background
• Measurement of $\gamma$-rays generated by neutron interaction with ${}^{16}$O at 30 MeV and 250 MeV
• New Signal of Atmospheric Tau Neutrino Appearance: Sub-GeV Neutral-Current Interactions in JUNO
• Benchmarks and applications of the nuclear deexcitation event generator NucDeEx
• CNNs for enhanced background discrimination in DSNB searches in large-scale water-Gd detectors