Cross Sections and Charged Pion Spectra in Proton-Carbon Interactions at 31 GeV/c

TL;DR

This paper presents precise measurements of charged pion spectra from proton-carbon interactions at 31 GeV/c, crucial for improving neutrino flux predictions and cosmic ray air shower models.

Contribution

It provides new detailed pion production cross sections at 31 GeV/c, enhancing the accuracy of models used in neutrino and cosmic ray experiments.

Findings

Charged pion spectra measured with 2007 data set.

Results improve neutrino flux predictions for T2K.

Data aid cosmic ray air shower simulations.

Abstract

As neutrino long baseline experiments enter a new domain of precision, the careful study of systematic errors due to poor knowledge of production cross sections for pions and kaons require more dedicated measurements for precise neutrino flux predictions. The cosmic ray experiments require dedicated hadron production measurements to tune simulation models used to describe air shower profiles. Among other goals, the NA61/SHINE (SPS Heavy Ion and Neutrino Experiment) experiment at the CERN SPS aims at precision measurements (5% and below) for both neutrino and cosmic ray experiments: those will improve the prediction of the neutrino flux for the T2K experiment at J-PARC and the prediction of muon production in the propagation of air showers for the Auger and KASCADE experiments. NA61/SHINE took data during a pilot run in 2007 and in 2009 and 2010 with different carbon targets. The NA61/SHINE set-up and spectra for positive and negative pions obtained with the 2007 thin (4% interaction length) carbon target data are presented.