Search

We present the findings of a study based on a new inelastic electron-scattering experiment on the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$ nucleus focusing on the kinematic region of $Q^2=0.8\,\mathrm{GeV}^2/{c}^2$. The measured cross section is sensitive to the transverse response function and provides a stringent test of theoretical models, as well as of the theoretical assumptions made in Monte-Carlo event-generator codes developed for the interpretation of neutrino-nucleus experiments, such as DUNE and HyperK. We find that modern generators such as GENIE and GiBUU reproduce our new experimental data within 10$\%$.

We report the first search result for the flux of astrophysical electron antineutrinos for energies O(10) MeV in the gadolinium-loaded Super-Kamiokande (SK) detector. In June 2020, gadolinium was introduced to the ultra-pure water of the SK detector in order to detect neutrons more efficiently. In this new experimental phase, SK-Gd, we can search for electron antineutrinos via inverse beta decay with efficient background rejection and higher signal efficiency thanks to the high efficiency of the neutron tagging technique. In this paper, we report the result for the initial stage of SK-Gd with a $22.5\times552$ $\rm kton\cdot day$ exposure at 0.01% Gd mass concentration. No significant excess over the expected background in the observed events is found for the neutrino energies below 31.3 MeV. Thus, the flux upper limits are placed at the 90% confidence level. The limits and sensitivities are already comparable with the previous SK result with pure-water ($22.5 \times 2970 \rm kton\cdot day$) owing to the enhanced neutron tagging.

We study neutrino-nucleus charged-current reactions on finite nuclei for the situation in which an outgoing muon and a proton are detected in coincidence, i.e., we focus on semi-inclusive cross sections. We limit our attention to one-body current interactions (quasielastic scattering) and assess the impact of different nuclear effects in the determination of the neutrino energy. We identify the regions in phase space where the neutrino energy can be reconstructed relatively well, and study whether the cross section in those regions is significant. Our results indicate that it is possible to filter more than 50% of all events according to the muon and proton kinematics, so that for the DUNE and T2K fluxes the neutrino energy can be determined with an uncertainty of less than 1% and 3%, respectively. Furthermore, we find that the reconstructed neutrino energy does not depend strongly on how one treats the final-state interactions and is not much affected by the description of the initial state. On the other hand, the estimations of the uncertainty on the neutrino energy show important sensitivity to the modeling of the initial state., Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures

The extraction of neutrino mixing parameters from accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments relies on proper modeling of neutrino-nucleus scattering processes using neutrino-interaction event generators. Experimental tests of these generators are difficult due to the broad range of neutrino energies produced in accelerator-based beams and the low statistics of current experiments. Here we overcome these difficulties by exploiting the similarity of neutrino and electron interactions with nuclei to test neutrino event generators using high-precision inclusive electron scattering data. To this end, we revised the electron-scattering mode of the GENIE event generator ($e$-GENIE) to include electron-nucleus bremsstrahlung radiation effects and to use, when relevant, the exact same physics models and model parameters, as the standard neutrino-scattering version. We also implemented new models for quasielastic (QE) scattering and meson exchange currents (MEC) based on the theory-inspired SuSAv2 approach. Comparing the new $e$-GENIE predictions with inclusive electron scattering data, we find an overall adequate description of the data in the QE- and MEC-dominated lower energy transfer regime, especially when using the SuSAv2 models. Higher energy transfer-interactions, which are dominated by resonance production, are still not well modeled by $e$-GENIE., Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures. Significantly updated following referee comments

We review some recent progress in the study of electroweak interactions in nuclei within the SuSAv2-MEC model. The model has the capability to predict (anti)neutrino scattering observables on different nuclei. The theoretical predictions are compared with the recent T2K $\nu_\mu-^{16}$O data and good agreement is found at all kinematics. The results are very similar to those obtained for $\nu_\mu-^{12}$C scattering, except at low energies, where some differences emerge. The role of meson-exchange currents in the two-particle two-hole channel is analyzed in some detail. In particular it is shown that the density dependence of these contributions is different from what is found for the quasielastic response., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, The 19th International Workshop on Neutrinos from Accelerators-NUFACT2017, 25-30 September, 2017, Uppsala, Sweden

We present our recent progress in the description of neutrino-nucleus interaction in the GeV region, of interest for ongoing and future oscillation experiments. In particular, we discuss the weak excitation of two-particle-two-hole states induced by meson exchange currents in a fully relativistic framework. We compare the results of our model with recent measurements of neutrino scattering cross sections, showing the crucial role played by two-nucleon knockout in the interpretation of the data., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of the 35th International Workshop on Nuclear Theory, Rila Mountains (Bulgaria), June 26 - July 2, 2016. To appear in "Nuclear Theory", vol.35, Eds. M.Gaifarov, N. Minkov, Heron Press, Sofia

We compare the predictions of the SuperScaling model for charged current quasielastic muonic neutrino and antineutrino scattering from $^{12}$C with experimental data spanning an energy range up to 100 GeV. We discuss the sensitivity of the results to different parametrizations of the nucleon vector and axial-vector form factors. Finally, we show the differences between electron and muon (anti-)neutrino cross sections relevant for the $\nu$STORM facility., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures; v2: small corrections in the text and two added references; version accepted for publication by Phys. Lett. B