Measurement of charged-current muon neutrino-argon interactions without pions in the final state using the MicroBooNE detector

TL;DR

This paper presents a new measurement of flux-integrated differential cross sections for muon neutrino interactions with argon nuclei producing no pions, using the MicroBooNE detector, to improve understanding of neutrino interactions.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed differential cross section measurements for CC muon neutrino-argon interactions without pions, enabling better model validation.

Findings

Good agreement with single-differential measurements from neutrino event generators.

Limited generators can accurately describe double-differential distributions.

Facilitates comparison with Cherenkov detector measurements.

Abstract

We report a new measurement of flux-integrated differential cross sections for charged-current (CC) muon neutrino interactions with argon nuclei that produce no final-state pions ($\nu_\mu\mathrm{CC}0\pi$). These interactions are of particular importance as a topologically defined signal dominated by quasielasticlike interactions. This measurement was performed with the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber detector located at the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam and uses an exposure of $1.3\times10^{21}$ protons on target collected between 2015 and 2020. The results are presented in terms of single- and double-differential cross sections as a function of the final-state muon momentum and angle. The data are compared with widely used neutrino event generators. We find good agreement with the single-differential measurements, while only a subset of generators are also able to adequately describe the data in double-differential distributions. This work facilitates comparison with Cherenkov detector measurements, including those located at the Booster Neutrino Beam.