Measurements of Cross Sections and Charged Pion Spectra in Proton-Carbon Interactions at 31 GeV/c

Understand

Interaction cross sections and charged pion spectra in p+C interactions at 31 GeV/c were measured with the large acceptance NA61/SHINE spectrometer at the CERN SPS.

• These data are required to improve predictions of the neutrino flux for the T2K long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in Japan.
• A set of data collected during the first NA61/SHINE run in 2007 with an isotropic graphite target with a thickness of 4% of a nuclear interaction length was used for the analysis.
• The measured p+C inelastic and production cross sections are 257.2 +- 1.9 +- 8.9 mb and 229.3 +- 1.9 +- 9.0 mb, respectively.