Kinematic distributions from an inclusive sample of $1.41\times {10}^6$ charged-current ${\nu }_{\mu }$ interactions on iron, obtained using the MINOS near detector exposed to a wide-band beam with peak flux at 3 GeV, are compared to a conventional treatment of neutrino scattering within a Fermi gas nucleus. Results are used to guide the selection of a subsample enriched in quasielastic ${\nu }_{\mu }\mathrm{Fe}$ interactions, containing an estimated 123,000 quasielastic events of incident energies $1<E_{\nu }<8\mathrm{GeV}$, with $⟨E_{\nu }⟩=2.79\mathrm{GeV}$. Four additional subsamples representing topological and kinematic sideband regions to quasielastic scattering are also selected for the purpose of evaluating backgrounds. Comparisons using subsample distributions in four-momentum transfer $Q^2$ show the Monte Carlo model to be inadequate at low $Q^2$. Its shortcomings are remedied via inclusion of a $Q^2$-dependent suppression function for baryon resonance production, developed from the data. A chi-square fit of the resulting Monte Carlo simulation to the shape of the $Q^2$ distribution for the quasielastic-enriched sample is carried out with the axial-vector mass $M_A$ of the dipole axial-vector form factor of the neutron as a free parameter. The effective $M_A$ which best describes the data is ${1.23}_{-0.09}^{+0.13}{(\text{fit})}_{-0.15}^{+0.12}(\text{syst})\mathrm{GeV}$.

• Received 30 October 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.91.012005