Quasi-elastic neutrino charged-current scattering off C-12

TL;DR

This paper calculates quasi-elastic muon neutrino scattering off carbon using a relativistic model, comparing electron and neutrino processes, and analyzing nuclear effects on cross sections up to 2.8 GeV.

Contribution

It applies a relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation to neutrino scattering, extending previous electron-nucleus models to neutrino interactions and analyzing nuclear effects.

Findings

Reduced cross sections for neutrino and electron scattering are similar.

Oxygen has lower cross sections than carbon at similar energies.

Nuclear model dependence is significant around 1 GeV.

Abstract

The charged-current quasi-elastic scattering of muon neutrino on a carbon target is calculated for neutrino energy up to 2.8 GeV using the relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation with relativistic optical potential, which was earlier successfully applied to describe electron-nucleus data. We studied both neutrino and electron processes and have shown that the reduced exclusive cross section for neutrino and electron scattering are similar. We have also studied nuclear and axial vector mass effects on the shape of $Q^2$ distribution. The comparison of the (anti)neutrino total cross sections per (proton)neutron, calculated for the carbon and oxygen targets shows the cross sections for oxygen to be lower than those for carbon. We found significant nuclear model dependence of inclusive and total cross sections for energy about 1 GeV.