Inclusive neutrino and antineutrino reactions in 56Fe

Abstract

We obtain cross sections for the inclusive neutrino and antineutrino reactions in 56Fe for the processes νe + 56Fe ⟶ e− + X, ν̄e + 56Fe ⟶ e+ + X, νμ + 56Fe ⟶ μ− + X and ν̄μ + 56Fe ⟶ μ+ + X. For the former two reactions we do this for incident neutrino energies from threshold to 240 MeV and for the latter two reactions from threshold to 300 MeV. We make use of a tensor model, which depends upon data obtained from the total muon capture rate in 56Fe, to calculate our results. We also obtain the electron neutrino cross section averaged over the Michel spectrum and the muon neutrino cross section averaged over the LAMPF muon neutrino spectrum. We find that these cross sections are substantial as would be expected from the neutron content of the 56Fe nucleus and might therefore be a serious background for nuclear neutrino experiments with substantial iron or steel shielding. We compare our calculation with the experimental results of the KARMEN Collaboration and discuss our results in light of planned experiments in iron.