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Title: Electron Neutrino Charged-Current Quasielastic Scattering in the MINERvA Experiment

Conference ·
OSTI ID:1250486

The electron-neutrino charged-current quasielastic (CCQE) cross section on nuclei is an important input parameter to appearance-type neutrino oscillation experiments. Current experiments typically work from the muon neutrino cross section and apply corrections from theoretical arguments to obtain a prediction for the electron neutrino cross section, but to date there has been no experimental verification of the estimates for this channel at an energy scale appropriate to such experiments. We present the first measurement of an exclusive reaction in few-GeV electron neutrino interactions, namely, the cross section for a CCQE-like process, made using the MINERvA detector. The result is given as differential cross-sections vs. the electron energy, electron angle, and square of the four-momentum transferred to the nucleus, $Q^2$. We also compute the ratio to a muon neutrino cross-section in $Q^2$ from MINERvA. We find satisfactory agreement between this measurement and the predictions of the GENIE generator.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
MINERvA
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359
OSTI ID:
1250486
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1510.08342; FERMILAB-CONF-15-525-ND; 1401224
Resource Relation:
Conference: Meeting of the APS Division of Particles and Fields, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, 08/04-08/08/2015
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English