Probing neutrino-nucleus interaction in DUNE and MicroBooNE

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nuclear effects influence neutrino interactions in DUNE and MicroBooNE, proposing a calorimetric method for better energy reconstruction to improve oscillation parameter measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a selection strategy focusing on specific final states to reduce nuclear uncertainties in neutrino energy reconstruction.

Findings

Selection of 1 proton, 0 pions, any neutrons helps isolate quasi-elastic events.

The method improves neutrino energy reconstruction accuracy.

Nuclear effects significantly impact neutrino oscillation measurements.

Abstract

The neutrino experiments utilize heavy nuclear targets to achieve high statistics neutrino-nucleus interaction event rate, which leads to systematic uncertainties in the oscillation parameters due to the nuclear effects and uncertainties in the cross-section. Understanding the interaction of neutrinos with the nucleus becomes crucial in determining the oscillation parameters with high precision. We investigate the uncertainty in quasi-elastic interaction due to nuclear effects by selecting exactly 1 proton, 0 pions, and any number of neutrons in the final state in DUNE and MicroBooNE detectors, and the effects on the neutrino oscillation in the DUNE detector. The calorimetric method with this selection can be used for accurate neutrino energy reconstruction in the quasi-elastic channel where the nuclear effects are inevitable.