Neutrino Interactions and Long-Baseline Experiments

TL;DR

Accurate neutrino energy reconstruction in long-baseline experiments depends on understanding neutrino-nucleus interactions and final state interactions, which are modeled using quantum-kinetic transport theory to improve measurement precision.

Contribution

This paper discusses the application of quantum-kinetic transport theory to develop an event generator that accounts for nuclear effects in neutrino energy reconstruction.

Findings

Nuclear interactions significantly affect observable signals in experiments.

Quantum-kinetic models improve the accuracy of neutrino energy reconstruction.

Effects of nuclear interactions are demonstrated through specific examples.

Abstract

The extraction of neutrino mixing parameters and the CP-violating phase requires knowledge of the neutrino energy. This energy must be reconstructed from the final state of a neutrino-nucleus reaction since all long-baseline experiments use nuclear targets. This reconstruction requires detailed knowledge of the neutrino reactions with bound nucleons and of the final state interactions of hadrons with the nuclear environment. Quantum-kinetic transport theory can be used to build an event generator for this reconstruction that takes basic nuclear properties, such as binding, into account. Some examples are discussed that show the effects of nuclear interactions on observables in long-baseline experiments