Evidence of Coherent K+ Meson Production in Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

Z. Wang et al. (MINERvA Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 061802 – Published 5 August 2016
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Abstract

Neutrino-induced charged-current coherent kaon production νμAμK+A is a rare, inelastic electroweak process that brings a K+ on shell and leaves the target nucleus intact in its ground state. This process is significantly lower in rate than the neutrino-induced charged-current coherent pion production because of Cabibbo suppression and a kinematic suppression due to the larger kaon mass. We search for such events in the scintillator tracker of MINERvA by observing the final state K+, μ, and no other detector activity, and by using the kinematics of the final state particles to reconstruct the small momentum transfer to the nucleus, which is a model-independent characteristic of coherent scattering. We find the first experimental evidence for the process at 3σ significance.

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  • Received 8 June 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.061802

© 2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Particles & FieldsNuclear Physics

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Vol. 117, Iss. 6 — 5 August 2016

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