Measurement of Neutrino-Nucleon Neutral-Current Elastic Scattering Cross-section at SciBooNE

Abstract

In this thesis, results of neutrino-nucleon neutral current (NC) elastic scattering analysis are presented. Neutrinos interact with other particles only with weak force. Measurement of cross-section for neutrino-nucleon reactions at various neutrino energy are important for the study of nucleon structure. It also provides data to be used for beam flux monitor in neutrino oscillation experiments. The cross-section for neutrino-nucleon NC elastic scattering contains the axial vector form factor GA(Q2) as well as electromagnetic form factors unlike electromagnetic interaction. GA is propotional to strange part of nucleon spin (Δs) in Q2 → 0 limit. Measurement of NC elastic cross-section with smaller Q2 enables us to access Δs. NC elastic cross-sections of neutrino-nucleon and antineutrino-nucleon were measured earlier by E734 experiment at Brookheaven National Laboratory (BNL) in 1987. In this experiment, cross-sections were measured in Q2 > 0.4 GeV2 region. Result from this experiment was the only published data for NC elastic scattering cross-section published before our experiment. SciBooNE is an experiment for the measurement of neutrino-nucleon scattering cross-secitons using Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at FNAL. BNB has energy peak at 0.7 GeV. In this energy region, NC elastic scattering, charged current elastic scattering, charged current pion production, and neutral current pion production are the major reaction branches. SciBar, electromagnetic calorimeter, and Muon Range Detector are the detectors for SciBooNE. The SciBar consists of finely segmented scintillators and 14336 channels of PMTs. It has a capability to reconstruct particle track longer than 8 cm and separate proton from muons and pions using energy deposit information. Signal of NC elastic scattering is a single proton track. In vp → vp process, the recoil proton is detected. On the other hand, most of vn → vn is invisible because there are only neutral particles in final state, but sometimes recoil neutron is scattered by proton and recoil proton is detected. Signal of this event is also single proton track. Event selection for the single proton track events using geometrical and dE/dx information of reconstructed track is performed. After the event selection, NC elastic scattering data sample is obtained. They includes vp → vp and vn → vn is obtained. Absolute cross-section as a function of Q2 is evaluated from this NC elastic scattering data sample.