Neutrino versus antineutrino cross sections and CP violation

TL;DR

This paper compares neutrino and antineutrino interactions to explore CP violation, using MiniBooNE data to analyze nuclear effects and the importance of multinucleon contributions in the interference term.

Contribution

It introduces a method to extract nuclear matrix element information from the sum and difference of neutrino and antineutrino cross sections, highlighting the role of multinucleon effects.

Findings

The combined cross sections can reveal nuclear matrix element details.

The model accurately reproduces the sum and difference of cross sections.

Multinucleon contributions are significant in the interference term.

Abstract

We discuss the nuclear interactions of neutrinos versus those of antineutrinos, a relevant comparison for CP violation experiments in the neutrino sector. We consider the MiniBooNE quasielastic-like double differential neutrinos and antineutrinos cross sections which are flux dependent and hence specific to the MiniBooNE set-up. We combine them introducing their sum and their difference. We show that the last combination can bring a general information, which can be exploited in other experiments, on the nuclear matrix elements of the axial vector interference term. Our theoretical model reproduces well the two cross sections combinations. This confirms the need for a sizeable multinucleon component in particular in the interference term.