Measurement of differential cross sections for ν μ -Ar charged-current interactions with protons and no pions in the final state with the MicroBooNE detector

Abstract

© 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. We present an analysis of MicroBooNE data with a signature of one muon, no pions, and at least one proton above a momentum threshold of 300 MeV/c (CC0πNp). This is the first differential cross-section measurement of this topology in neutrino-argon interactions. We achieve a significantly lower proton momentum threshold than previous carbon and scintillator-based experiments. Using data collected from a total of approximately 1.6×1020 protons on target, we measure the muon neutrino cross section for the CC0πNp interaction channel in argon at MicroBooNE in the Booster Neutrino Beam which has a mean energy of around 800 MeV. We present the results from a data sample with estimated efficiency of 29% and purity of 76% as differential cross sections in five reconstructed variables: the muon momentum and polar angle, the leading proton momentum and polar angle, and the muon-proton opening angle. We include smearing matrices that can be used to "forward fold"theoretical predictions for comparison with these data. We compare the measured differential cross sections to a number of recent theory predictions demonstrating largely good agreement with this first-ever dataset on argon.