Calorimetric analysis for long-baseline neutrino experiments

TL;DR

This paper investigates the challenges in accurately reconstructing neutrino energy in long-baseline experiments, highlighting how final-state interactions and nuclear spectral functions introduce significant uncertainties.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of momentum-dependent potentials and spectral functions on energy reconstruction uncertainties using transport theory.

Findings

Large uncertainties in neutrino energy reconstruction due to final-state interactions.

Spectral functions are crucial for understanding both initial and final state dynamics.

Transport theory helps analyze the origins of these uncertainties.

Abstract

In neutrino long-baseline experiments the energy of the incoming neutrino must be reconstructed from observations of the final state. We first discuss the problems that arise for energy conservation during the final-state interactions in a momentum-dependent potential. We then show, for the example of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, that the presence of such a potential is necessarily connected with a large uncertainty in the reconstructed energy. This same uncertainty also affects the determination of energy- and four-momentum-transfers in neutrino-nucleus reactions. We analyze the origins of these uncertainties using transport theory for the description of the evolution of the final state of the reaction. We show that the spectral functions of target nuclei play an essential role not only for the initial neutrino-nucleus interaction but also for the final state evolution.