Charged current (anti)neutrino induced eta production off the nucleon

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive model for eta meson production induced by charged current (anti)neutrinos off nucleons, combining nonresonant and resonant contributions, and compares predictions with experimental data to inform neutrino experiments.

Contribution

The paper introduces a unified model incorporating both nonresonant and resonant mechanisms for eta production, calibrated with electromagnetic data, and extends it to neutrino-induced processes up to 2 GeV.

Findings

Resonance $S_{11}(1535)$ dominates eta production.

Model accurately reproduces experimental cross sections.

Predicted distributions useful for neutrino experiment analyses.

Abstract

The charged current (anti)neutrino induced eta production from the nucleons is studied in a model based on the effective Lagrangians to evaluate the contribution from the nonresonant and resonant diagrams. The contribution from the nonresonant background terms has been obtained using a microscopic model based on the SU(3) chiral Lagrangians. The contribution from the resonant diagrams due to the low lying $S_{11}(1535)$, $S_{11} (1650)$, and $P_{11} (1710)$ resonances has been evaluated using an effective phenomenological Lagrangian with its parameters determined from the experimental values of their branching ratios and decay widths to the $N\eta$ channel. The model is first used to reproduce satisfactorily the experimental data from the MAINZ and JLab on the total cross sections for the photo- and electro- production of $\eta$ mesons, which fixes the model parameters in the vector current interaction. The PCAC hypothesis and generalized Goldberger-Treiman relation are used to fix the parameters of the axial vector interaction. The model is then applied to study the weak production of eta mesons induced by the neutrinos and antineutrinos, and predicts the numerical values for the $Q^2$-distribution, $\eta$-momentum distribution, and the total cross section for the reactions $\nu_{\mu} + n \longrightarrow \mu^{-} + p + \eta$ and $\bar{\nu}_{\mu} + p \longrightarrow \mu^+ + n + \eta$ in the energy region up to 2 GeV. It is found that the photo, electro, and (anti)neutrino production of eta mesons is dominated by the contribution from the $S_{11}(1535)$ resonance. The results discussed in this work are relevant for the present and future accelerator experiments like MicroBooNE, T2K, NOvA, MINERvA, T2-HyperK and DUNE as well as for the atmospheric neutrino experiments.