Measurement of the neutrino-oxygen neutral-current interaction cross section by observing nuclear deexcitation γ rays

Ariga, Akitaka; Ariga, Tomoko; Ereditato, Antonio; Göldi, Damian; Hierholzer, Martin; Kreslo, Igor; Martti, Nirkko; Pistillo, Ciro; Redij, Asmita Ajit (2014). Measurement of the neutrino-oxygen neutral-current interaction cross section by observing nuclear deexcitation γ rays. Physical review. D - particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology, D90(7), 072012. Melville, N.Y.: American Physical Society 10.1103/PhysRevD.90.072012

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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 ð1.22; 2.20Þ × 10−38 cm2 at a median neutrino energy of 630 MeV, compared with the theoretical prediction of 2.01 × 10−38 cm2.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

10 Strategic Research Centers > Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics (AEC)
08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute > Laboratory for High Energy Physics (LHEP)
04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM)

UniBE Contributor:

Ariga, Akitaka, Ariga, Tomoko, Ereditato, Antonio, Göldi, Damian, Hierholzer, Martin, Kreslo, Igor, Martti, Nirkko, Pistillo, Ciro, Redij, Asmita Ajit

Subjects:

500 Science > 530 Physics
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 360 Social problems & social services

ISSN:

1550-7998

Publisher:

American Physical Society

Language:

English

Submitter:

Jan Dirk Brinksma

Date Deposited:

03 Jun 2015 13:17

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:47

Publisher DOI:

10.1103/PhysRevD.90.072012

Additional Information:

Kollaboration - Es sind nur die Berner Autoren namentlich erwähnt

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.68753

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/68753

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