Exploring neutrino-nucleus interactions in the GeV regime using MINERvA
EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL-SPECIAL TOPICS (2021)
Probing nuclear effects with neutrino-induced charged-current neutral pion production
Physical Review D American Physical Society 102 (2020) 072007
Abstract:
We study neutrino-induced charged-current (CC) π 0 production on carbon nuclei using events with fully imaged final-state proton-π 0 systems. Novel use of final-state correlations based on transverse kinematic imbalance enable the first measurements of the struck nucleon’s Fermi motion, of the intranuclear momentum transfer (IMT) dynamics, and of the final-state hadronic momentum configuration in neutrino pion production. Event distributions are presented for i) the momenta of neutrino-struck neutrons below the Fermi surface, ii) the direction of missing transverse momentum characterizing the strength of IMT, and iii) proton-pion momentum imbalance with respect to the lepton scattering plane. The observed Fermi motion and IMT strength are compared to the previous MINERνA measurement of neutrino CC quasielastic-like production. The measured shapes and absolute rates of these distributions, as well as the cross-section asymmetries show tensions with predictions from current neutrino generator models.Constraint of the MINERνA medium energy neutrino flux using neutrino-electron elastic scattering
Physical Review D American Physical Society 100 (2019) 092001
Tuning the GENIE pion production model with MINERvA data
Physical Review D American Physical Society 100:7 (2019) 072005
Abstract:
Faced with unresolved tensions between neutrino interaction measurements at few-GeV neutrino energies, current experiments are forced to accept large systematic uncertainties to cover discrepancies between their data and model predictions. The widely used pion production model in genie is compared to four MINERνA charged current pion production measurements using nuisance. Tunings, i.e., adjustments of model parameters, to help match genie to MINERνA and older bubble chamber data are presented. We find that scattering off nuclear targets as measured in MINERνA is not in good agreement with expectations based upon scattering off nucleon (hydrogen or deuterium) targets in existing bubble chamber data. An additional ad hoc correction for the low-Q2 region, where collective nuclear effects are expected to be large, is presented. While these tunings and corrections improve the agreement of genie with the data, the modeling is imperfect. The development of these tunings within the nuisance framework allows for straightforward extensions to other neutrino event generators and models, and allows omitting and including new datasets as they become available.Neutron measurements from antineutrino hydrocarbon reactions
Physical Review D American Physical Society 100:5 (2019) 052002