Modeling electron- and neutrino-nucleus scattering in kinematics relevant for accelerator-based neutrino-oscillation experiments

by Dr Vishvas Pandey (Ghent University)

Thursday 28 Jul 2016, 15:00 → 16:00 US/Eastern

Universe

The accelerator-based neutrino-oscillation program, aimed for the measurement of oscillation parameters and observing the leptonic CP violation, is moving full steam ahead. However, the recent measurements have revealed unexpected and interesting neutrino interaction physics, and exposed the inadequacy of the relativistic Fermi gas (RFG) based Monte-Carlo generators (in describing neutrino-nucleus scatterings) resulting in large systematic uncertainties. A more detailed and careful neutrino-nucleus modeling, covering the whole experimental kinematical space, is inevitable in order to achieve the unprecedented precision goal of the present and future accelerator-based neutrino-oscillation experiments. In this talk, I will present a microscopic Hartree-Fock (HF) and continuum random phase approximation (CRPA) approach to electroweak scattering off nuclei from low energy (threshold) to the intermediate energy region. As a necessary check to test the reliability of this approach, I will first present a electron-nucleus (^12 C, ^16 O, ^40 Ca) cross section comparison (in the kinematics range of interest) with the data to validate the model. Then, I will present flux-folded (anti)neutrino cross section calculations and comparison with the measurements of MiniBooNE and T2K experiments. I will draw special attention to the contribution emerging from the low-energy nuclear excitations, at the most forward scattering bins, in the signal of MiniBooNE and T2K experiments and their impact on the non-trivial differences between muon-neutrino and electron-neutrino cross sections. These effects remain inaccessible in the (current) relativistic Fermi-gas (RFG) based Monte-Carlo generators.