Neutrino-nucleus interactions

TL;DR

This paper reviews neutrino-nucleus interactions across various experiments, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive reaction mechanisms, analyzing recent pion production data, and discussing implications for energy reconstruction and oscillation measurements.

Contribution

It highlights the necessity of including all relevant reaction mechanisms in theoretical models and examines recent experimental data in the context of neutrino interactions.

Findings

MiniBooNE data align with old BNL cross sections

Missing features in pion spectra indicate incomplete interaction models

Energy reconstruction inaccuracies impact oscillation parameter extraction

Abstract

Interactions of neutrinos with nuclei in the energy ranges relevant for the MiniBooNE, T2K, NO$\nu$A, MINER$\nu$A and MINOS experiments are discussed. It is stressed that any theoretical treatment must involve all the relevant reaction mechanisms: quasielastic scattering, pion production and DIS. In addition, also many-body interactions play a role. In this talk we show how a misidentification of the reaction mechanism can affect the energy reconstruction. We also discuss how the newly measured pion production cross sections, as reported recently by the MiniBooNE collaboration, can be related to the old cross sections obtained on elementary targets. The MiniBooNE data seem to be compatible only with the old BNL data. Even then crucial features of the nucleon-pion-Delta interaction are missing in the experimental pion kinetic energy spectra. We also discuss the meson production processes at the higher energies of the NO$\nu$A, MINER$\nu$A and MINOS experiments. Here final state interactions make it impossible to gain knowledge about the elementary reaction amplitudes. Finally, we briefly explore the problems due to inaccuracies in the energy reconstruction that LBL experiments face in their extraction of oscillation parameters.