Experimental study of quasi-elastic neutrino interactions on Ar with a liquid Ar TPC exposed to the WANF neutrino beam

TL;DR

This study reports the first use of a liquid Argon TPC exposed to a neutrino beam, analyzing quasi-elastic interactions and observing nuclear effects beyond basic models.

Contribution

It provides novel experimental data on neutrino interactions with liquid Argon, highlighting nuclear effects beyond Fermi motion and Pauli blocking.

Findings

Detection of nuclear effects beyond Fermi motion and Pauli blocking.

First exposure of a liquid Argon TPC to a neutrino beam.

Analysis of quasi-elastic interactions in a small detector.

Abstract

We present results from the first exposure of a liquid Ar time projection chamber to a neutrino beam. The data have been collected in 1997 with a 50 liter ICARUS-like chamber located between the CHORUS and NOMAD experiment at the CERN West Area Neutrino Facility. We focus on the analysis of quasi-elastic interactions; despite the limited size of the detector, nuclear effects beyond Fermi motion and Pauli blocking have been observed as perturbations to the pure quasi-elastic kinematics.