Pion Production Measurement in NA61/SHINE Experiment for High Precision Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

TL;DR

This paper reports on the measurement of negatively charged pion production in proton-Carbon interactions at 31 GeV/c by the NA61/SHINE experiment, aiming to improve neutrino flux predictions for T2K.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of negative pion production cross sections using NA61/SHINE data for T2K-related energies and phase space coverage.

Findings

Preliminary dn/dp distributions of negative pions are presented.

Two methods for pion selection and detector correction are discussed.

Results enhance the accuracy of neutrino flux simulations for T2K.

Abstract

One of physics goals of the NA61/SHINE experiment is a measurement of hadron production cross sections from proton-Carbon interactions at 31GeV/c for the T2K experiment at J-PARC. A precise knowledge of differential cross sections for pion and kaon production is of importance for improving the accuracy of neutrino flux simulations. The NA61 detector has a large angular acceptance, full coverage of the T2K phase space region, and good particle identification. In this work the analyses of negatively charged pion production are presented. Two different methods of negative pion selection and corrections for detector effects are discussed. Finally, preliminary dn/dp distributions of negatively charged pion in p+C interactions at 31 GeV/c are presented.