Probing Free Nucleons with (Anti)neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method using neutrino and antineutrino interactions with hydrogen to study free nucleons, test isospin symmetry, and improve neutrino-nucleus interaction models, addressing key systematic uncertainties in neutrino experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to probe free nucleons with neutrinos and antineutrinos, enhancing understanding of nucleon structure and nuclear effects in neutrino interactions.

Findings

Method to study free protons and neutrons using neutrino-hydrogen interactions.

Techniques to test isospin symmetry with neutrino and antineutrino data.

Strategies to constrain nuclear effects and calibrate neutrino energy scale.

Abstract

We discuss a method to study free protons and neutrons using $\nu(\bar \nu)$-hydrogen (H) Charged Current (CC) inelastic interactions, together with various precision tests of the isospin (charge) symmetry using $\nu$ and $\bar \nu$ CC interactions on both H and nuclear targets. Probing free nucleons with (anti)neutrinos provides information about their partonic structure, as well as a crucial input for the modeling of $\nu(\bar\nu)$-nucleus (A) interactions. Such measurements can also represent a tool to address some of the limitations of accelerator-based neutrino scattering experiments on nuclear targets, originating from the combined effect of the unknown (anti)neutrino energy and of the nuclear smearing. We also discuss a method to impose constraints on nuclear effects and calibrate the (anti)neutrino energy scale in $\nu(\bar \nu)$-A interactions, which are two outstanding systematic uncertainties affecting present and future long-baseline neutrino experiments.