Measurement of the charged-current quasi-elastic cross-section for electron neutrinos on a hydrocarbon target

Abstract

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Department of Physics and Astronomy, 2015.We report herein the first-ever measurement of a cross-section for an exclusive state in electron neutrino scattering at the GeV scale, which was made using the MINERνA detector in the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermilab. We present the electron neutrino CCQE differential cross-sections, which are averaged over neutrinos of energies 1-10 GeV (with mean energy of about 3 GeV), in terms of various kinematic variables: final-state electron angle, final-state electron energy, and the square of the four-momentum transferred to the nucleus by the neutrino, Q2. We also provide a total cross-section vs. neutrino energy. While our measurement of this process is found to be in agreement with the predictions of the GENIE event generator, we also report on an unpredicted photon-like process we observe in a similar kinematic regime. The absence of this process from models for neutrino interactions is a potential stumbling block for future on-axis neutrino oscillation experiments. We include kinematic and particle species identification characterizations which can be used in building models to help address this shortcoming