Inclusive neutrino scattering off deuteron from threshold to GeV energies

TL;DR

This study calculates neutrino-deuteron quasi-elastic scattering cross sections up to GeV energies, finding two-body current contributions to be small and emphasizing the importance of nuclear structure effects in interpreting experimental data.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed calculation of neutrino-deuteron scattering cross sections including two-body currents, showing their minimal impact and improving understanding of nuclear effects in neutrino interactions.

Findings

Two-body currents increase cross sections by less than 10%.

Final state interaction effects are negligible above 500 MeV.

Nuclear structure effects are significant compared to naive models.

Abstract

Background: Neutrino-nucleus quasi-elastic scattering is crucial to interpret the neutrino oscillation results in long baseline neutrino experiments. There are rather large uncertainties in the cross section, due to insufficient knowledge on the role of two-body weak currents. Purpose: Determine the role of two-body weak currents in neutrino-deuteron quasi-elastic scattering up to GeV energies. Methods: Calculate cross sections for inclusive neutrino scattering off deuteron induced by neutral and charge-changing weak currents, from threshold up to GeV energies, using the Argonne $v_{18}$ potential and consistent nuclear electroweak currents with one- and two-body terms. Results: Two-body contributions are found to be small, and increase the cross sections obtained with one-body currents by less than 10% over the whole range of energies. Total cross sections obtained by describing the final two-nucleon states with plane waves differ negligibly, for neutrino energies $\gtrsim 500$ MeV, from those in which interaction effects in these states are fully accounted for. The sensitivity of the calculated cross sections to different models for the two-nucleon potential and/or two-body terms in the weak current is found to be weak. Comparing cross sections to those obtained in a naive model in which the deuteron is taken to consist of a free proton and neutron at rest, nuclear structure effects are illustrated to be non-negligible. Conclusion: Contributions of two-body currents in neutrino-deuteron quasi-elastic scattering up to GeV are found to be smaller than 10%. Finally, it should be stressed that the results reported in this work do not include pion production channels.