Using Neutrino Nucleus Interactions as a Probe of the Strong Interaction

Abstract

Neutrino scattering experiments have been studying QCD for over 30 years. From the Gargamelle experiments in the early 70's, through the subsequent bubble chamber and electronic detector experiments in the 80's and 90's, neutrino scattering experiments have steadily accumulated increasing statistics and minimized their systematic errors. An example of the more recent studies of QCD with neutrinos is from the TeVatron neutrino beam—the NuTeV ν‐Fe experiment. The problem the community faces in trying to study QCD with modern neutrino data is that there is no experimentally verified way to scale neutrino‐nucleus (for example, Fe) results to the equivalent neutrino‐nucleon values making it difficult to combine neutrino nucleus scattering data with charged‐lepton nucleus and nucleon scattering data in QCD global fits to extract parton distribution functions. This is particularly crucial since there is now indications that nuclear effects in neutrino nucleus interactions are different than those measured in charged‐lepton nucleus scattering. To better understand this situation, the MINERνA neutrino‐nucleus scattering experiment at Fermilab, a collaboration of elementary‐particle and nuclear physicists, is systematically studying neutrino nuclear effects off of He, C, Fe and Pb for a more thorough A‐dependent study of nuclear PDFs and these correction factors.