Simultaneous Measurement of Proton and Lepton Kinematics in Quasielasticlike νμ-Hydrocarbon Interactions from 2 to 20 GeV

Abstract

Neutrino charged-current quasielastic-like scattering, a reaction category extensively used in neutrino oscillation measurements, probes nuclear effects that govern neutrino-nucleus interactions. This Letter reports the first measurement of the triple-differential cross section for ν μ quasielastic-like reactions using the hydrocarbon medium of the MINERvA detector exposed to a wideband beam spanning 2 ≤ E ν ≤ 20

GeV . The measurement maps the correlations among transverse and longitudinal muon momenta and summed proton kinetic energies, and compares them to predictions from a state-of-art simulation. Discrepancies are observed that likely reflect shortfalls with modeling of pion and nucleon intranuclear scattering and/or spectator nucleon ejection from struck nuclei. The separate determination of leptonic and hadronic variables can inform experimental approaches to neutrino-energy estimation.