Neutrino Cross Section Measurements for Long-Baseline Accelerator-based Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance of accurate neutrino cross section measurements for improving the sensitivity of long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments like T2K and NOvA, which aim to measure key oscillation parameters.

Contribution

It highlights the role of current and upcoming experiments in providing precise cross section data to enhance neutrino energy reconstruction and background prediction.

Findings

Current experiments improve signal and background understanding.

Precise cross section measurements are crucial for next-generation sensitivities.

Enhanced energy reconstruction aids in measuring oscillation parameters.

Abstract

Neutrino oscillations are clear evidence for physics beyond the standard model. The goal of next-generation neutrino oscillation experiments is to find a non-zero $\theta_{13}$, the last mixing matrix element for which we only know an upper limit. For this, next-generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments require an order of magnitude better sensitivities. In particular, accelerator-based experiments such as T2K and NOvA experiments need (1) good neutrino energy reconstruction for the precise measurement of $\Delta m^2_{32}$ and $sin^22\theta_{23}$, and (2) good background prediction to measure $\nu_e$ appearance signals. Current and near future high statistics neutrino experiments, such as K2K, MiniBooNE, SciBooNE, MINOS, and MINERvA help both (1) and (2) by precise signal and background channel measurements.