Quasielastic Charged-Current Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering with Nonrelativistic Nuclear Energy Density Functionals

TL;DR

This paper investigates quasielastic charged-current neutrino-nucleus scattering using nonrelativistic nuclear energy density functionals, constraining axial and effective masses through comparison with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework using the KIDS energy density functional to analyze neutrino scattering and constrains key nuclear parameters based on experimental results.

Findings

Total cross section is insensitive to the effective mass.

Axial mass can be determined independently of the effective mass.

Differential cross sections are sensitive to both axial and effective masses.

Abstract

Charged-current neutrino-nucleus scattering is studied in the quasielastic region with the KIDS (Korea-IBS-Daegu-SKKU) nuclear energy density functional. We focus on the uncertainties stemming from the axial mass and the in-medium effective mass of the nucleon. Comparing the result of theory to the state-of-the-art data from MiniBooNE, T2K, and MINER$\nu$A, we constrain the axial mass and the effective mass that are compatible with the data. We find that the total cross section is insensitive to the effective mass, so the axial mass could be determined independently of the uncertainty in the effective mass. Differential cross sections at different kinematics are, on the other hand, sensitive to the effective mass as well as the axial mass. Within the uncertainty of the axial mass constrained from the total cross section, dependence on the effective mass is examined. As a result we obtain the axial mass and the effective mass that are consistent with the experimental data.