First T2K measurement of transverse kinematic imbalance in the muon-neutrino charged-current single-$\pi^+$ production channel containing at least one proton

TL;DR

This paper presents the first measurement of transverse kinematic imbalance in muon-neutrino charged-current single-$ pi^+$ production, providing data to test and improve neutrino interaction models involving nuclear effects.

Contribution

It provides the first T2K measurement of this specific transverse kinematic imbalance in neutrino interactions, comparing results to various theoretical models.

Findings

Results favor models with realistic nuclear medium effects.

Differential cross sections measured on hydrocarbon target.

Data constrains neutrino-nucleus interaction models.

Abstract

This paper reports the first T2K measurement of the transverse kinematic imbalance in the single-$\pi^+$ production channel of neutrino interactions. We measure the differential cross sections in the muon-neutrino charged-current interaction on hydrocarbon with a single $\pi^+$ and at least one proton in the final state, at the ND280 off-axis near detector of the T2K experiment. The extracted cross sections are compared to the predictions from different neutrino-nucleus interaction event generators. Overall, the results show a preference for models which have a more realistic treatment of nuclear medium effects including the initial nuclear state and final-state interactions.