Precise Measurement of Dimuon Production Cross-Sections in muon neutrino Fe and muon antineutrino Fe Deep Inelastic Scattering at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper reports the most precise measurements to date of muon neutrino and antineutrino-induced dimuon production cross-sections in deep inelastic scattering, providing valuable data for understanding charm production and nucleon structure.

Contribution

It combines new and re-analyzed data to produce the most accurate measurements of neutrino-induced dimuon cross-sections, advancing the field's understanding of charm production and nucleon strangeness.

Findings

Most precise dimuon production cross-sections to date

Data useful for charm dynamics and nucleon strangeness studies

Implications for CKM matrix element Vcd

Abstract

We present measurements of the semi-inclusive cross-sections for muon neutrino and muon antineutrino-nucleon deep inelastic scattering interactions with two oppositely charged muons in the final state. These events dominantly arise from production of a charm quark during the scattering process. The measurement was obtained from the analysis of 5102 muon neutrino-induced and 1458 muon antineutrino-induced events collected with the NuTeV detector exposed to a sign-selected beam at the Fermilab Tevatron. We also extract a cross-section measurement from a re-analysis of 5030 muon neutrino-induced and 1060 muon antineutrino-induced vents collected from the exposure of the same detector to a quad-triplet beam by the CCFR experiment. The results are combined to obtain the most statistically precise measurement of neutrino-induced dimuon production cross-sections to date. These measurements should be of broad use to phenomenologists interested in the dynamics of charm production, the strangeness content of the nucleon, and the CKM matrix element Vcd.