Use of Neutrino Scattering Events with Low Hadronic Recoil to Inform Neutrino Flux and Detector Energy Scale

Abstract

Charged-current neutrino interactions with low hadronic recoil ("low-nu") have a cross-section that is approximately constant versus neutrino energy. These interactions have been used to measure the shape of neutrino fluxes as a function of neutrino energy at accelerator-based neutrino experiments such as CCFR, NuTeV, MINOS and MINERvA. In this paper, we demonstrate that low-nu events can be used to measure parameters of neutrino flux and detector models and that utilization of event distributions over the upstream detector face can discriminate among parameters that affect the neutrino flux model. From fitting a large sample of low-nu events obtained by exposing MINERvA to the NuMI medium-energy beam, we find that the best-fit flux parameters are within their a priori uncertainties, but the energy scale of muons reconstructed in the MINOS detector is shifted by 3.6% (or 1.8 times the a priori uncertainty on that parameter). These fit results are now used in all MINERvA cross-section measurements, and this technique can be applied by other experiments operating at MINERvA energies, such as DUNE.

18 pages, 10 figures, Replaced with accepted version

References in corpus (4)

• A new parameterization of the nucleon elastic form factors
• The T2K Neutrino Flux Prediction
• Measurements of the Inclusive Neutrino and Antineutrino Charged Current Cross Sections in MINERvA Using the Low-$\nu$ Flux Method
• MINERvA neutrino detector response measured with test beam data

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Improved constraint on the MINERvA medium energy neutrino flux using $\bar{\nu }{e}^{-}\to \bar{\nu }{e}^{-}$ data
• Measurement of inclusive charged-current $ν_{\numu}$ scattering on hydrocarbon at {<Enu>} 6 GeV with low three-momentum transfer
• Simultaneous measurement of muon neutrino quasielastic-like cross sections on CH, C, water, Fe, and Pb as a function of muon kinematics at MINERvA
• A substandard candle: the low-$\nu$ method at few-GeV neutrino energies