HEP-Astro Seminar | Cross Section Measurement From Microboone: The Most Detailed Examination of Inclusive Muon Neutrino-Argon Scattering to Date

Studying neutrino flavor oscillations through measurements of neutrino-nucleus interactions is the backbone of experimental neutrino physics and will enable the determination of the neutrino mass ordering and the degree of CP violation in the lepton sector. A precise understanding of neutrino-nucleon cross sections is needed in order to properly interpret these measurements in current and future experiments. To fill this need, the MicroBooNE experiment has developed an expansive cross section measurement program using its liquid argon time projection chamber detector located at Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory. The detector, coupled with topographical event reconstruction techniques, provides MeV-level detection threshold calorimetry and mm-resolution three-dimensional images of neutrino interactions, enabling detailed studies of neutrino-nucleon reaction products.

The analysis featured in this talk is a set of differential cross section measurements made simultaneously for final states with and without protons for the inclusive muon neutrino charged current interaction channel. The cross section results are compared to predictions from a number of commonly used neutrino event generators. These comparisons reveal severe mismodeling of final states without protons, possibly from insufficient treatment of final state interactions involving the hadronic reaction products as they exit the nucleus. In their entirety, these measurements represent the most detailed examination of inclusive muon neutrino-argon cross sections to date.