Simultaneous measurement of muon neutrino $\nu_\mu$ charged-current single $\pi^+$ production in CH, C, H$_2$O, Fe, and Pb targets in MINERvA

TL;DR

This paper reports detailed measurements of muon neutrino charged-current single pion production across various nuclear targets, revealing discrepancies with existing models and providing crucial data for neutrino oscillation research.

Contribution

It provides high-statistics differential cross sections for $ u_rac12$ interactions on multiple targets, highlighting model deficiencies in nuclear effects and scaling predictions.

Findings

Suppression of cross section at low $Q^2$ observed

Enhancement of low $T_rac12$ in data compared to models

Cross-section ratios for heavy nuclei differ from predictions

Abstract

Neutrino-induced charged-current single $\pi^+$ production in the $\Delta(1232)$ resonance region is of considerable interest to accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments. In this work, high statistics differential cross sections are reported for the semi-exclusive reaction $\nu_\mu A \to \mu^- \pi^+ +$ nucleon(s) on scintillator, carbon, water, iron, and lead targets recorded by MINERvA using a wide-band $\nu_\mu$ beam with $\left< E_\nu \right> \approx 6$~GeV. Suppression of the cross section at low $Q^2$ and enhancement of low $T_\pi$ are observed in both light and heavy nuclear targets compared to phenomenological models used in current neutrino interaction generators. The cross-section ratios for iron and lead compared to CH across the kinematic variables probed are 0.8 and 0.5 respectively, a scaling which is also not predicted by current generators.