Adjusting neutrino interaction models and evaluating uncertainties using NOvA near detector data

Creators: Acero, M. A.; Adamson, P.; Agam, G.; Aliaga, L.; Alion, T.; Allakhverdian, V.; Anfimov, N.; Antoshkin, A.; Asquith, L.; Aurisano, A.; Back, A.; Backhouse, C.; Baird, M.; Balashov, N.; Baldi, P.; Bambah, B. A.; Bashar, S.; Bays, K.; Bending, S.; Bernstein, R.; Bhatnagar, V.; Bhuyan, B.; Bian, J.; Blair, J.; Booth, A. C.; Bour, P.; Bowles, R.; Bromberg, C.; Buchanan, N.; Butkevich, A.; Calvez, S.; Carroll, T. J.; Catano-Mur, E.; Childress, S.; Choudhary, B. C.; Coan, T. E.; Colo, M.; Corwin, L.; Cremonesi, L.; Davies, G. S.; Derwent, P. F.; Ding, P.; Djurcic, Z.; Doyle, D.; Dukes, E. C.; Dung, P.; Duyang, H.; Edayath, S.; Ehrlich, R.; Elkins, M.; Feldman, G. J.; Filip, P.; Flanagan, W.; Franc, J.; Frank, M. J.; Gallagher, H. R.; Gandrajula, R.; Gao, F.; Germani, S.; Giri, A.; Gomes, R. A.; Goodman, M. C.; Grichine, V.; Groh, M.; Group, R.; Guo, B.; Habig, A.; Hakl, F.; Hartnell, J.; Hatcher, R.; Hatzikoutelis, A.; Heller, K.; Hewes, J.; Himmel, A.; Holin, A.; Howard, B.; Huang, J.; Hylen, J.; Jediny, F.; Johnson, C.; Judah, M.; Kakorin, I.; Kalra, D.; Kaplan, D. M.; Keloth, R.; Klimov, O.; Koerner, L. W.; Kolupaeva, L.; Kotelnikov, S.; Kullenberg, Ch.; Kumar, A.; Kuruppu, C. D.; Kus, V.; Lackey, T.; Lang, K.; Li, L.; Lin, S.; Lokajicek, M.; Luchuk, S.; Maan, K.; Magill, S.; Mann, W. A.; Marshak, M. L.; Martinez-Casales, M.; Matveev, V.; Mayes, B.; Méndez, D. P.; Messier, M. D.; Meyer, H.; Miao, T.; Miller, W. H.; Mishra, S. R.; Mislivec, A.; Mohanta, R.; Moren, A.; Morozova, A.; Mualem, L.; Muether, M.; Mufson, S.; Mulder, K.; Murphy, R.; Musser, J.; Naples, D.; Nayak, N.; Nelson, J. K.; Nichol, R.; Nikseresht, G.; Niner, E.; Norman, A.; Norrick, A.; Nosek, T.; Olshevskiy, A.; Olson, T.; Paley, J.; Patterson, R. B.; Pawloski, G.; Petrova, O.; Petti, R.; Plunkett, R. K.; Rafique, A.; Psihas, F.; Radovic, A.; Raj, V.; Ramson, B.; Rebel, B.; Rojas, P.; Ryabov, V.; Samoylov, O.; Sanchez, M. C.; Sánchez Falero, S.; Seong, I. S.; Shanahan, P.; Sheshukov, A.; Singh, P.; Singh, V.; Smith, E.; Smolik, J.; Snopok, P.; Solomey, N.; Sousa, A.; Soustruznik, K.; Strait, M.; Suter, L.; Sutton, A.; Sweeney, C.; Talaga, R. L.; Tapia Oregui, B.; Tas, P.; Thayyullathil, R. B.; Thomas, J.; Tiras, E.; Torbunov, D.; Tripathi, J.; Torun, Y.; Urheim, J.; Vahle, P.; Vallari, Z.; Vasel, J.; Vokac, P.; Vrba, T.; Wallbank, M.; Warburton, T. K.; Wetstein, M.; Whittington, D.; Wojcicki, S. G.; Wolcott, J.; Yallappa Dombara, A.; Yonehara, K.; Yu, S.; Yu, Y.; Zadorozhnyy, S.; Zalesak, J.; Zhang, Y.; Zwaska, R.; NOvA Collaboration

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Abstract

The two-detector design of the NOvA neutrino oscillation experiment, in which two functionally identical detectors are exposed to an intense neutrino beam, aids in canceling leading order effects of cross-section uncertainties. However, limited knowledge of neutrino interaction cross sections still gives rise to some of the largest systematic uncertainties in current oscillation measurements. We show contemporary models of neutrino interactions to be discrepant with data from NOvA, consistent with discrepancies seen in other experiments. Adjustments to neutrino interaction models in GENIE are presented, creating an effective model that improves agreement with our data. We also describe systematic uncertainties on these models, including uncertainties on multi-nucleon interactions from a newly developed procedure using NOvA near detector data.

Additional Information

© The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Funded by SCOAP3. Received 17 June 2020; Accepted 19 October 2020; Published 04 December 2020. This document was prepared by the NOvA collaboration using the resources of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility. Fermilab is managed by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy; the U.S. National Science Foundation; the Department of Science and Technology, India; the European Research Council; the MSMT CR, GA UK, Czech Republic; the RAS, RFBR, RMES, RSF, and BASIS Foundation, Russia; CNPq and FAPEG, Brazil; STFC, and the Royal Society, United Kingdom; and the state and University of Minnesota. This work used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. We are grateful for the contributions of the staffs of the University of Minnesota at the Ash River Laboratory and of Fermilab. Data Availability Statement: This manuscript has no associated data or the data will not be deposited. [Authors' comment: The data generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and Collaboration approval. The code used to produce the adjustments to GENIE 2.12.2 described herein is available at https://github.com/novaexperiment/NOvARwgt-public.]

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