NC pi0 Production in the MiniBooNE Antineutrino Data

TL;DR

This paper analyzes neutral current pi0 production in MiniBooNE antineutrino data, crucial for understanding backgrounds in neutrino oscillation experiments, highlighting the production mechanisms and initial findings.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of NC pi0 production in MiniBooNE antineutrino data, including the distinction between resonance and coherent production mechanisms.

Findings

Largest sample of antineutrino-induced pi0s in 1 GeV range

Initial measurements of NC pi0 production rates

Insights into coherent production processes

Abstract

The single largest background to future numubar to nuebar (numu to nue) oscillation searches is neutral current pi0 production. MiniBooNE, which began taking antineutrino data in January 2006, has the world's largest sample of pi0's produced by antineutrinos in the 1 GeV energy range. These neutral pions are primarily produced through the delta resonance but can also be created through "coherent production." The latter process is the coherent sum of glancing scatters of (anti)neutrinos off a neutron or proton, in which the nucleus is kept intact but a pi0 is created. Current analysis of NC pi0 production in the MiniBooNE antineutrino data will be discussed.