Measurement of the Inclusive NuMu Charged Current Cross Section on Carbon in the Near Detector of the T2K Experiment

TL;DR

This paper reports the first measurement of muon neutrino charged current interactions on carbon at around 1 GeV, providing flux-averaged double differential cross sections and a total cross section with statistical and systematic uncertainties.

Contribution

It presents the first measurement of u_{ ext{mu}} inclusive charged current cross sections on carbon at ~1 GeV, using data from the T2K experiment and external flux predictions.

Findings

Flux-averaged total cross section: (6.91 +/- 0.13 (stat) +/- 0.84 (syst)) x10^{-39} cm^2/nucleon

Data set includes 4485 interaction candidates from 2010-2011

Measurement performed at mean neutrino energy of 0.85 GeV

Abstract

T2K has performed the first measurement of \nu{\mu} inclusive charged current interactions on carbon at neutrino energies of ~1 GeV where the measurement is reported as a flux-averaged double differential cross section in muon momentum and angle. The flux is predicted by the beam Monte Carlo and external data, including the results from the NA61/SHINE experiment. The data used for this measurement were taken in 2010 and 2011, with a total of 10.8 x 10^{19} protons-on-target. The analysis is performed on 4485 inclusive charged current interaction candidates selected in the most upstream fine-grained scintillator detector of the near detector. The flux-averaged total cross section is <\sigma_CC>_\phi =(6.91 +/- 0.13 (stat) +/- 0.84 (syst)) x10^{-39} cm^2/nucleon for a mean neutrino energy of 0.85 GeV.