Theoretical modeling of charged current $\hat{I}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼(\bar{\hat{I}}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼){-}^{40}Ar$ DIS at DUNE energies

Abstract

The charged current $\hat{I}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼(\bar{\hat{I}}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼)$-induced deep inelastic scattering (DIS) from an ${}^{40}\mathrm{Ar}$ target is studied using a microscopic framework that incorporates nuclear medium effects due to Fermi motion, binding energy, nucleon correlations, mesonic ($\ddot{I}€$ and $\ddot{I}$) contributions, and nuclear shadowing and antishadowing across the relevant Bjorken-$x$ region. The nuclear structure functions $F_{iA}(x,Q^2)$ $(i=1\text{-}3)$ are evaluated using a relativistic nucleon spectral function ($S_h$) within the local density approximation employing the free nucleon structure functions, $F_{iN}(x,Q^2)$ $(i=1\text{-}3)$. These $F_{iN}(x,Q^2)$ $(i=1\text{-}3)$ are calculated using parton distribution functions (PDFs) from MMHT 2014 parameterization, including higher-order perturbative QCD corrections up to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO), along with nonperturbative target mass corrections (TMC). The resulting nuclear structure functions $F_{iA}(x,Q^2)$ $(i=1\text{-}3)$ are subsequently used to compute the differential DIS cross sections for ${}^{40}Ar$ nucleus. Numerical results are presented for $\hat{I}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼(\bar{\hat{I}}{½}_{\hat{I}}¼)$ beam energies $E=4$ GeV and $E=6$ GeV for the differential scattering cross sections $\frac{d^2\ddot{I}ƒ}{dxdy}$ and $\frac{d\ddot{I}ƒ}{dx}$, relevant to ongoing and upcoming liquid-argon neutrino experiments such as DUNE and the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino program.

17 pages, 14 figures