Abstract
We report the first measurement of monoenergetic muon neutrino charged current interactions. MiniBooNE has isolated 236MeV muon neutrino events originating from charged kaon decay at rest (K^{+}→μ^{+}ν_{μ}) at the NuMI beamline absorber. These signal ν_{μ}-carbon events are distinguished from primarily pion decay in flight ν_{μ} and ν[over ¯]_{μ} backgrounds produced at the target station and decay pipe using their arrival time and reconstructed muon energy. The significance of the signal observation is at the 3.9σ level. The muon kinetic energy, neutrino-nucleus energy transfer (ω=E_{ν}-E_{μ}), and total cross section for these events are extracted. This result is the first known-energy, weak-interaction-only probe of the nucleus to yield a measurement of ω using neutrinos, a quantity thus far only accessible through electron scattering.
Highlights
We report the first measurement of monoenergetic muon neutrino charged current interactions
MiniBooNE has isolated 236 MeV muon neutrino events originating from charged kaon decay at rest (Kþ → μþνμ) at the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beamline absorber
The kaon decay at rest (KDAR) neutrino has been identified as a gateway to a number of physics measurements, including searches for high-Δm2 oscillations [2,3] and as a standard candle for studying the neutrino-nucleus interaction, energy reconstruction, and cross sections in the hundreds of MeV energy region [4]
Summary
We report the first measurement of monoenergetic muon neutrino charged current interactions. MiniBooNE has isolated 236 MeV muon neutrino events originating from charged kaon decay at rest (Kþ → μþνμ) at the NuMI beamline absorber. These signal νμ-carbon events are distinguished from primarily pion decay in flight νμ and νμ backgrounds produced at the target station and decay pipe using their arrival time and reconstructed muon energy. The kaon decay at rest (KDAR) neutrino has been identified as a gateway to a number of physics measurements, including searches for high-Δm2 oscillations [2,3] and as a standard candle for studying the neutrino-nucleus interaction, energy reconstruction, and cross sections in the hundreds of MeV energy region [4]. There are other ideas for using this neutrino, including as a source to make a precision measurement of the strange quark contribution to the nucleon spin (Δs) [4] and as a possible
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