Theory of QED radiative corrections to neutrino scattering at accelerator energies

Abstract

Control over quantum electrodynamics (QED) radiative corrections is critical for precise determination of neutrino oscillation probabilities from observed (anti)neutrino detection rates. It is particularly important to understand any difference between such corrections for different flavors of (anti)neutrinos in charged-current interactions. We provide theoretical foundations for calculating these corrections. Using effective field theory, the corrections are shown to factorize into soft, collinear, and hard functions. The soft and collinear functions contain large logarithms in perturbation theory but are computable from QED. The hard function parametrizes hadronic structure but is free from large logarithms. Using a simple model for the hard function, we investigate the numerical impact of QED corrections in charged-current (anti)neutrino-nucleon elastic cross sections and cross-section ratios at GeV energies. We consider the implications of mass singularity theorems that govern the lepton-mass dependence of cross sections for sufficiently inclusive observables and demonstrate the cancellation of leading hadronic and nuclear corrections in phenomenologically relevant observables.

43 pages, 27 figures, v2: journal version

References in corpus (31)

• First Measurement of the Muon Neutrino Charged Current Quasielastic Double Differential Cross Section
• Proton and neutron electromagnetic form factors and uncertainties
• Vector and Axial Nucleon Form Factors:A Duality Constrained Parameterization
• Two-loop QED corrections to Bhabha scattering
• Measurements of the Electric Form Factor of the Neutron up to Q2=3.4 GeV2 using the Reaction He3(e,e'n)pp
• Charged-current neutrino-nucleus reactions within the SuSAv2-MEC approach
• Meson-exchange currents and quasielastic neutrino cross sections in the SuperScaling Approximation model
• Differences in Quasi-Elastic Cross-Sections of Muon and Electron Neutrinos
• The NEUT Neutrino Interaction Simulation
• Measurement of the proton electric to magnetic form factor ratio from \vec ^1H(\vec e, e'p)
• Polarization Transfer in the 4He(e,e'p)3H Reaction at Q^2 = 0.8 and 1.3 (GeV/c)^2
• Nonrelativistic QED approach to the Lamb shift
• Recent highlights from GENIE v3
• Proton G_E/G_M from beam-target asymmetry
• Quasielastic axial-vector mass from experiments on neutrino-nucleus scattering
• The NRQED lagrangian at order 1/M^4
• The Charge Form Factor of the Neutron at Low Momentum Transfer from the ${}^2\vec{\mathrm{H}}(\vec{\mathrm{e}},{\mathrm{e}}^{\prime }\mathrm{n})\mathrm{p}$ Reaction
• Nucleon axial and pseudoscalar form factors from lattice QCD at the physical point
• Study of quasielastic scattering using charged-current nu_mu-iron interactions in the MINOS Near Detector
• Extraction of the Neutron Magnetic Form Factor from Quasi-Elastic 3He(pol)(e(pol),e') at Q^2 = 0.1 - 0.6 (GeV/c)^2
• Measurement of Differential Cross Sections for ${\nu }_{\mu }$-Ar Charged-Current Interactions with Protons and no Pions in the Final State with the MicroBooNE Detector
• Isospin violation in the vector form factors of the nucleon
• Isovector electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon from lattice QCD and the proton radius puzzle
• Measurement of muon plus proton final states in ${\nu }_{\mu }$ Interactions on Hydrocarbon at $⟨$$E_{\nu }$$⟩$ = 4.2 GeV
• Two-photon exchange corrections in elastic muon-proton scattering
• Measurement of the ${\nu }_{\mu }$ charged current quasi-elastic cross-section on carbon with the T2K on-axis neutrino beam
• Direct Measurement of Nuclear Dependence of Charged Current Quasielastic-like Neutrino Interactions using MINERvA
• QED radiative corrections for accelerator neutrinos
• Effect of the charged-lepton's mass on the quasielastic neutrino cross sections
• Measurement of inclusive charged-current $ν_{\numu}$ scattering on hydrocarbon at {<Enu>} 6 GeV with low three-momentum transfer
• Isospin breaking in the vector current of the nucleon