First Measurement of Differential Cross Sections for Muon Neutrino Charged Current Interactions on Argon with a Two-proton Final State in the MicroBooNE Detector

TL;DR

This paper reports the first measurement of differential cross sections for muon neutrino charged-current interactions on argon with specific final states, providing new insights into two-nucleon knockout processes crucial for neutrino physics.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental differential cross section measurements for specific neutrino-argon interactions involving two protons and no pions.

Findings

Measurements of proton-proton opening angles.

Data on total transverse momentum of the final state.

Insights into two-nucleon knockout interaction characteristics.

Abstract

We present the first measurement of differential cross sections for charged-current muon neutrino interactions on argon with one muon, two protons, and no pions in the final state. These final states are dominated by two-nucleon knockout interactions, which are complicated to model and for which there is currently limited information about the characteristics of these interactions in existing neutrino-nucleus scattering data. Detailed investigations of two-nucleon knockout are vital to support upcoming experiments exploring the nature of the neutrino. Among the different kinematic quantities measured, the opening angle between the two protons, the angle between the total proton momentum and the muon, and the total transverse momentum of the final state system are most sensitive to the underlying physics processes as embodied in various theoretical models.