Simultaneous measurement of muon neutrino quasielastic-like cross sections on CH, C, water, Fe, and Pb as a function of muon kinematics at MINERvA

Abstract

This paper presents the first simultaneous measurement of the quasielastic-like neutrino-nucleus cross sections on C, water, Fe, Pb and scintillator (hydrocarbon or CH) as a function of longitudinal and transverse muon momentum. The ratio of cross sections per nucleon between Pb and CH is always above unity and has a characteristic shape as a function of transverse muon momentum that evolves slowly as a function of longitudinal muon momentum. The ratio is constant versus longitudinal momentum within uncertainties above a longitudinal momentum of 4.5GeV/c. The cross section ratios to CH for C, water, and Fe remain roughly constant with increasing longitudinal momentum, and the ratios between water or C to CH do not have any significant deviation from unity. Both the overall cross section level and the shape for Pb and Fe as a function of transverse muon momentum are not reproduced by current neutrino event generators. These measurements provide a direct test of nuclear effects in quasielastic-like interactions, which are major contributors to long-baseline neutrino oscillation data samples.

arXiv comment9 pages, 8 flgures, including supplemental material

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Charged-current quasielastic neutrino scattering from ${}^{12}$C in an extended superscaling model with two-nucleon emission
• Measurement of the A dependence of the muon neutrino charged-current quasielastic-like cross section as a function of muon and proton kinematics at $<$E${}_{\nu }>\sim$6 GeV