Leveraging electron scattering data to improve neutrino interaction modeling
The extraction of mixing parameters in accelerator-based neutrino oscillation measurement relays on detailed understanding of neutrino-nucleus interactions and the reconstruction of incident neutrino energy. With improved detection technologies and neutrino production beams, nuclear interaction uncertainties are becoming a leading and limiting systematic for the analysis of neutrino oscillation measurements.
Building on the large similarity of electron- and neutrino-nucleus interactions, the electrons-for-neutrino collaboration is leading a set of precision electron-nucleus interaction measurements at various beam energies and target nuclei to test, constrain, and validate models of neutrino-nucleus interactions.
We welcome all collaborators to join our e4nu effort.
Experiments on electrons interacting with atomic nuclei have shown that the models used to measure neutrino oscillations — and thereby possibly to understand the formation of the Universe — are less accurate than we thought.
These experiments are used to study ghostly particles that hold the secrets of the cosmos, but a new study suggests 70% of interactions are badly reconstructed.
