High-statistics measurement of neutrino quasielastic-like scattering at <E_nu>=~6 GeV on a hydrocarbon target

Understand

We measure neutrino charged current quasielastic-like scattering on hydrocarbon at high statistics using the wide-band NuMI beam with neutrino energy peaked at 6 GeV.

• The double-differential cross section is reported in terms of muon longitudinal and transverse 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 to 5 GeV/c and 9 to 20 GeV/c.
• The single differential cross section versus momentum transfer squared ($d\sigma/dQ_{QE}^2$) is measured over a four-decade range of $Q^2$ that extends to $10~GeV^2$.