Measurement of Muon Neutrino Quasi-Elastic Scattering on Carbon

Understand

The observation of neutrino oscillations is clear evidence for physics beyond the standard model.

• To make precise measurements of this phenomenon, neutrino oscillation experiments, including MiniBooNE, require an accurate description of neutrino charged current quasi-elastic (CCQE) cross sections to predict signal samples.
• Using a high-statistics sample of muon neutrino CCQE events, MiniBooNE finds that a simple Fermi gas model, with appropriate adjustments, accurately characterizes the CCQE events observed in a carbon-based detector.
• The extracted parameters include an effective axial mass, M_A^eff = 1.23+/-0.20 GeV, that describes the four-momentum dependence of the axial-vector form factor of the nucleon; and a Pauli-suppression parameter, kappa = 1.019+/-0.011.