HARP Collaboration results on the proton-nuclei interactions at few GeV energies

TL;DR

The paper presents detailed measurements of pion production cross-sections in proton-nuclei interactions at a few GeV, aiding neutrino flux predictions and hadronic interaction models.

Contribution

It provides new double-differential cross-section data for proton interactions with various nuclei, covering a wide range of angles and momenta, which was previously unavailable.

Findings

Enhanced understanding of neutrino fluxes in accelerator experiments

Improved predictions of atmospheric neutrino fluxes

Data useful for optimizing neutrino factory designs

Abstract

Recent results obtained by the HARP collaboration on the measurements of the double-differential production cross-section of positive and negative pions in proton interactions with nuclear targets from Beryllium to Lead are presented. They cover production at small angles (30-210 mrad) and relatively large momenta up to 8 GeV/c as well as large angles (0.35 - 2.15 rad) and small momenta (0.1 - 0.8 GeV/c). These results are relevant for a detailed understanding of neutrino fluxes in accelerator neutrino experiments, better prediction of atmospheric neutrino fluxes, optimization of a future neutrino factory design and for improvement of hadronic generators widely used by the HEP community in the simulation of hadronic interactions.