Measurements of hadron production in 90 GeV/c proton-carbon interactions

TL;DR

This paper reports detailed measurements of neutral and charged hadron production in 90 GeV/c proton-carbon interactions, providing essential data to improve neutrino flux predictions for oscillation experiments.

Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive double-differential multiplicity measurements of various hadrons in proton-carbon interactions at 90 GeV/c, enhancing neutrino flux modeling.

Findings

Measured multiplicities of charged and neutral hadrons

Provided double-differential distributions as functions of momentum and angle

Supplied data crucial for neutrino flux predictions

Abstract

This paper presents the multiplicity of neutral and charged hadrons produced in 90 GeV$/c$ proton-carbon interactions from a dataset taken by the NA61/SHINE experiment in 2017. Particle identification via dE/dx was performed for the charged hadrons $\pi^\pm$, $K^\pm$, and $p / \bar{p}$; the neutral hadrons $K^0_S$, $\Lambda$, and $\bar{\Lambda}$ were identified via an invariant mass analysis of their decays to charged hadrons. Double-differential multiplicity results as a function of laboratory momentum and polar angle are presented for each particle species; these results provide vital constraints on the predicted neutrino beam flux for current and future long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments.