Abstract
The single $\pi^0$ production rate in neutral current neutrino interactions on water in a neutrino beam with a peak neutrino energy of 0.6 GeV has been measured using the P{\O}D, one of the subdetectors of the T2K near detector. The production rate was measured for data taking periods when the P{\O}D contained water ($2.64\times{}10^{20}$ protons-on-target) and also periods without water ($3.49 \times 10^{20}$ protons-on-target). A measurement of the neutral current single $\pi^0$ production rate on water is made using appropriate subtraction of the production rate with water in from the rate with water out of the target region. The subtraction analysis yields 106 $\pm$ 41 (stat.) $\pm$ 69 (sys.) signal events, which is consistent with the prediction of 157 events from the nominal simulation. The measured to expected ratio is 0.68 $\pm$ 0.26 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.44 (sys.) $\pm$ 0.12 (flux). The nominal simulation uses a flux integrated cross section of $7.63\times{}10^{-39}$ cm${}^2$ per nucleon with an average neutrino interaction energy of 1.3 GeV.
Highlights
The Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) long-baseline neutrino experiment is designed to make precision measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters θ23 and Δm232 via νμ disappearance and to search for the mixing angle θ13 via νe appearance in a νμ beam
The production rate was measured for data taking periods when the PØD contained water
This is consistent with the prediction of 157 events
Summary
The Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) long-baseline neutrino experiment is designed to make precision measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters θ23 and Δm232 via νμ disappearance and to search for the mixing angle θ13 via νe appearance in a νμ beam. As neutral current π0 events can cause an irreducible background to the νe appearance signal, it is important to provide a constraint using measurements of the production rate on water using the near detector. This paper details the first measurement of neutral current single π0 production (NC1π0) on water, using a neutrino beam with peak energy of 0.6 GeV [2]. While previous measurements performed using the T2K near detector have improved our knowledge of sub-GeV neutrino interactions, the rate of NC1π0 production on water is still relatively unknown at the neutrino energies of the T2K beam. Measurements of NC1π0 production on a variety of targets and different neutrino energy distributions have been made in other experiments [4–8] In this analysis, the signal is defined by the final state particles, with a NC1π0 interaction defined by a single π0 particle exiting the nucleus along with any number of.
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