Elsevier

Physics Letters B

Volume 682, Issue 2, 30 November 2009, Pages 177-184
Physics Letters B

A measurement of coherent neutral pion production in neutrino neutral current interactions in the NOMAD experiment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2009.10.083Get rights and content
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Abstract

We present a study of exclusive neutral pion production in neutrino–nucleus Neutral Current interactions using data from the NOMAD experiment at the CERN SPS. The data correspond to 1.44×106 muon-neutrino Charged Current interactions in the energy range 2.5Eν300 GeV. Neutrino events with only one visible π0 in the final state are expected to result from two Neutral Current processes: coherent π0 production, ν+Aν+A+π0 and single π0 production in neutrino–nucleon scattering. The signature of coherent π0 production is an emergent π0 almost collinear with the incident neutrino while π0's produced in neutrino–nucleon deep inelastic scattering have larger transverse momenta. In this analysis all relevant backgrounds to the coherent π0 production signal are measured using data themselves. Having determined the backgrounds, and using the Rein–Sehgal model for the coherent π0 production to compute the detection efficiency, we obtain 4630±522(stat)±426(syst) corrected coherent-π0 events with Eπ00.5 GeV. We measure σ(νAνAπ0)=[72.6±8.1(stat)±6.9(syst)]×1040cm2/nucleus. This is the most precise measurement of the coherent π0 production to date.

PACS

13.15.+g
13.85.Lg
14.60.Lm

Keywords

Coherent pion neutrino neutral current

Cited by (0)

1

Now at University of Warwick, UK.

2

Deceased.

3

Now at Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy.

4

Now at Brunel University, Australia.

5

Now at Univ. of Perugia and INFN, Perugia, Italy.

6

Now at Illinois Institute of Technology, USA.