Inclusive Charged--Current Neutrino--Nucleus Reactions

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive model for charged-current neutrino-nucleus interactions at energies relevant for oscillation experiments, incorporating many-body effects and Delta excitation, with no free parameters beyond previous calibrations.

Contribution

It extends existing models by including multi-nucleon mechanisms and Delta isobar excitation, providing a parameter-free approach aligned with prior electromagnetic and pion interaction studies.

Findings

Two-nucleon knockout mechanisms are crucial for matching MiniBooNE data.

The model accurately describes weak CC interactions without free parameters.

Inclusion of multi-body effects improves agreement with experimental results.

Abstract

We present a model for weak CC induced nuclear reactions at energies of interest for current and future neutrino oscillation experiments. This model is a natural extension of the work of Refs.[1,2], where the QE contribution to the inclusive electron and neutrino scattering on nuclei was analyzed. The model is based on a systematic many body expansion of the gauge boson absorption modes that includes one, two and even three body mechanisms, as well as the excitation of Delta isobars. The whole scheme has no free parameters, besides those previously adjusted to the weak pion production off the nucleon cross sections in the deuteron, since all nuclear effects were set up in previous studies of photon, electron and pion interactions with nuclei. We have discussed at length the recent charged current quasi-elastic MiniBooNE cross section data, and showed that two nucleon knockout mechanisms are essential to describe these measurements.