197 research outputs found
First evidence of coherent meson production in neutrino-nucleus scattering
Neutrino-induced charged-current coherent kaon production,
, is a rare, inelastic electroweak process
that brings a on shell and leaves the target nucleus intact in its ground
state. This process is significantly lower in rate than neutrino-induced
charged-current coherent pion production, because of Cabibbo suppression and a
kinematic suppression due to the larger kaon mass. We search for such events in
the scintillator tracker of MINERvA by observing the final state ,
and no other detector activity, and by using the kinematics of the final state
particles to reconstruct the small momentum transfer to the nucleus, which is a
model-independent characteristic of coherent scattering. We find the first
experimental evidence for the process at significance.Comment: added ancillary file with information about the six kaon candidate
Single neutral pion production by charged-current interactions on hydrocarbon at 3.6 GeV
Single neutral pion production via muon antineutrino charged-current
interactions in plastic scintillator (CH) is studied using the \minerva
detector exposed to the NuMI low-energy, wideband antineutrino beam at
Fermilab. Measurement of this process constrains models of neutral pion
production in nuclei, which is important because the neutral-current analog is
a background for appearance oscillation experiments. The
differential cross sections for momentum and production angle, for
events with a single observed and no charged pions, are presented and
compared to model predictions. These results comprise the first measurement of
the kinematics for this process.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physics Letters
MINERvA neutrino detector response measured with test beam data
The MINERvA collaboration operated a scaled-down replica of the solid
scintillator tracking and sampling calorimeter regions of the MINERvA detector
in a hadron test beam at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility. This article reports
measurements with samples of protons, pions, and electrons from 0.35 to 2.0
GeV/c momentum. The calorimetric response to protons, pions, and electrons are
obtained from these data. A measurement of the parameter in Birks' law and an
estimate of the tracking efficiency are extracted from the proton sample.
Overall the data are well described by a Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulation of
the detector and particle interactions with agreements better than 4%, though
some features of the data are not precisely modeled. These measurements are
used to tune the MINERvA detector simulation and evaluate systematic
uncertainties in support of the MINERvA neutrino cross section measurement
program.Comment: as accepted by NIM
Measurement of Partonic Nuclear Effects in Deep-Inelastic Neutrino Scattering using MINERvA
The MINERvA collaboration reports a novel study of neutrino-nucleus
charged-current deep inelastic scattering (DIS) using the same neutrino beam
incident on targets of polystyrene, graphite, iron, and lead. Results are
presented as ratios of C, Fe, and Pb to CH. The ratios of total DIS cross
sections as a function of neutrino energy and flux-integrated differential
cross sections as a function of the Bjorken scaling variable x are presented in
the neutrino-energy range of 5 - 50 GeV. Good agreement is found between the
data and predicted ratios, based on charged-lepton nucleus scattering, at
medium x and low neutrino energies. However, the data rate appears depleted in
the vicinity of the nuclear shadowing region, x < 0.1. This apparent deficit,
reflected in the DIS cross-section ratio at high neutrino energy , is
consistent with previous MINERvA observations and with the predicted onset of
nuclear shadowing with the the axial-vector current in neutrino scattering
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