Charged-Current Double-Differential Cross Section Measurement of Electron Neutrinos in Low Recoil Region on Hydrocarbon at < Eν >∼7 GeV

Abstract:  Measuring neutrino mixing angles, especially the CP violation phase and mass hierarchy, is one of the priorities of the neutrino community and long baseline neutrino oscillation programs, such as T2K and NOvA, provided the most precise measurements to date. One of the dominating uncertainties of the measurements is the neutrino interaction model due to the difficulty of modeling the nuclear from the first principles. As a result, neutrino scattering experiments such as MINERvA were conducted to provide data input to reduce this uncertainty.

This thesis presents a charged-current double-differential cross section measurement of electron neutrinos using the MINERvA detector in terms of available energy (a proxy of energy transfer), three-momentum transfer, and/or transverse momentum of the final state electron. This measurement focuses on the transition region between quasi-elastic and resonance processes, where the multi-nucleon knockout process stands out. The result is compared to a modified GENIE model and similar measurements using muon neutrino samples.

In addition, this measurement reproduces the photon-like excess seen by previous MINERvA electron neutrino measurements and upholds the conclusion.