Measurement of the \nu_\mu charged current \pi^+ to quasi-elastic cross section ratio on mineral oil in a 0.8 GeV neutrino beam

TL;DR

This paper reports a precise measurement of the ratio between charged current single pion production and quasi-elastic cross sections for muon neutrinos on mineral oil, across a range of energies, aiding neutrino interaction modeling.

Contribution

It provides the first high-statistics measurement of this ratio on mineral oil with corrections for hadron re-interactions, across a broad energy spectrum.

Findings

Results are consistent with previous measurements.

Achieved 11% precision in the highest-statistics energy region.

Data supports existing neutrino interaction models.

Abstract

Using high statistics samples of charged current $\nu_\mu$ interactions, MiniBooNE reports a measurement of the single charged pion production to quasi-elastic cross section ratio on mineral oil (CH$_2$), both with and without corrections for hadron re-interactions in the target nucleus. The result is provided as a function of neutrino energy in the range 0.4 GeV $< E_\nu <$ 2.4 GeV with 11% precision in the region of highest statistics. The results are consistent with previous measurements and the prediction from historical neutrino calculations.