How well do we know neutrino-electron scattering? EFT approach

TL;DR

This paper develops a precise effective theory for neutrino-electron scattering, quantifying uncertainties and radiative corrections, achieving predictions with errors as low as 0.2-0.4%.

Contribution

It provides the most accurate effective theory for neutrino-electron and neutrino-quark scattering, including detailed error quantification and radiative correction analysis.

Findings

Predicted neutrino-electron scattering cross sections with 0.2-0.4% uncertainty.

Identified three key effective couplings, with one known to sub-ppm accuracy.

Quantified the main sources of theoretical uncertainty.

Abstract

We determine the effective theory of neutrino-electron and neutrino-quark scattering and provide the most precise up-to-date prediction for neutrino-electron scattering cross sections quantifying errors for the first time to be of order $0.2-0.4~\%$. Radiative corrections in the theory with electron and neutrinos only involve three effective couplings. One is the Fermi constant which is known with sub-ppm accuracy. Another one has a small error of order $0.02~\%$. The uncertainty of the third one is limited by the knowledge of hadronic contributions to charge-isospin vector-vector correlation function.