Abe, K., Adam, J., Aihara, H. et al. (357 more authors) (2014) Measurement of the neutrino-oxygen neutral-current interaction cross section by observing nuclear deexcitation gamma rays. Physical Review D (PRD), 90 (7). ISSN 1550-7998
Abstract
We report the first measurement of the neutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielastic (NCQE) cross section. It is obtained by observing nuclear deexcitation γ rays which follow neutrino-oxygen interactions at the Super-Kamiokande water Cherenkov detector. We use T2K data corresponding to 3.01×1020 protons on target. By selecting only events during the T2K beam window and with well-reconstructed vertices in the fiducial volume, the large background rate from natural radioactivity is dramatically reduced. We observe 43 events in the 4–30 MeV reconstructed energy window, compared with an expectation of 51.0, which includes an estimated 16.2 background events. The background is primarily nonquasielastic neutral-current interactions and has only 1.2 events from natural radioactivity. The flux-averaged NCQE cross section we measure is 1.55×10−38 cm2 with a 68% confidence interval of (1.22,2.20)×10−38 cm2 at a median neutrino energy of 630 MeV, compared with the theoretical prediction of 2.01×10−38 cm2.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 American Physical Society. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Physical Review D. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 08 Apr 2015 11:28 |
Last Modified: | 26 Mar 2018 16:05 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.90.072012 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Physical Society |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1103/PhysRevD.90.072012 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:84625 |