High-Statistics Measurement of Neutrino Quasielasticlike Scattering at 6 GeV on a Hydrocarbon Target

Abstract

We measure neutrino charged-current quasielasticlike scattering on hydrocarbon at high statistics using the wideband Neutrinos at the Main Injector beam with neutrino energy peaked at 6 GeV. The double-differential cross section is reported in terms of muon longitudinal ( p ∥ ) and transverse ( p ⊥ ) momentum. Cross section contours versus lepton momentum components are approximately described by a conventional generator-based simulation, however, discrepancies are observed for transverse momenta above 0.5

GeV / c for longitudinal momentum ranges 3–5 and 9 – 20

GeV / c . The single differential cross section versus momentum transfer squared ( d σ / d Q 2 QE ) is measured over a four-decade range of Q 2 that extends to 10

GeV 2 . The cross section turnover and falloff in the Q 2 range 0.3 – 10

GeV 2 is not fully reproduced by generator predictions that rely on dipole form factors. Our measurement probes the axial-vector content of the hadronic current and complements the electromagnetic form factor data obtained using electron-nucleon elastic scattering. These results help oscillation experiments because they probe the importance of various correlations and final-state interaction effects within the nucleus, which have different effects on the visible energy in detectors.