First Measurement of the Electron Neutrino Charged-Current Pion Production Cross Section on Carbon with the T2K Near Detector
K. Abe, S. Abe, R. Akutsu, H. Alarakia-Charles, Y. I. Alj Hakim, S. Alonso Monsalve, L. Anthony, S. Aoki, K. A. Apte, T. Arai, T. Arihara, S. Arimoto, E. T. Atkin, N. Babu, V. Baranov, G. J. Barker, G. Barr, D. Barrow, P. Bates, L. Bathe-Peters, M. Batkiewicz-Kwasniak, N. Baudis, V. Berardi, L. Berns, S. Bhattacharjee, A. Blanchet, A. Blondel, P. M. M. Boistier, S. Bolognesi, S. Bordoni, S. B. Boyd, C. Bronner, A. Bubak, M. Buizza Avanzini, J. A. Caballero, F. Cadoux, N. F. Calabria, S. Cao, S. Cap, D. Carabadjac, S. L. Cartwright, M. P. Casado, M. G. Catanesi, J. Chakrani, A. Chalumeau, D. Cherdack, A. Chvirova, J. Coleman, G. Collazuol, F. Cormier, A. A. L. Craplet, A. Cudd, D. D'ago, C. Dalmazzone, T. Daret, P. Dasgupta, C. Davis, Yu. I. Davydov, P. de Perio, G. De Rosa, T. Dealtry, C. Densham, A. Dergacheva, R. Dharmapal Banerjee, F. Di Lodovico, G. Diaz Lopez, S. Dolan, D. Douqa, T. A. Doyle, O. Drapier, K. E. Duffy, J. Dumarchez, P. Dunne, K. Dygnarowicz, A. Eguchi, J. Elias, S. Emery-Schrenk, G. Erofeev, A. Ershova, G. Eurin, D. Fedorova, S. Fedotov, M. Feltre, L. Feng, D. Ferlewicz, A. J. Finch, M. D. Fitton, C. Forza, M. Friend, Y. Fujii, Y. Fukuda, Y. Furui, J. García-Marcos, A. C. Germer, L. Giannessi, C. Giganti, M. Girgus, V. Glagolev, M. Gonin, R. González Jiménez, J. González Rosa, E. A. G. Goodman, K. Gorshanov, P. Govindaraj, M. Grassi, M. Guigue, F. Y. Guo, D. R. Hadley, S. Han, D. A. Harris, R. J. Harris, T. Hasegawa, C. M. Hasnip, S. Hassani, N. C. Hastings, Y. Hayato, I. Heitkamp, D. Henaff, Y. Hino, J. Holeczek, A. Holin, T. Holvey, N. T. Hong Van, T. Honjo, M. C. F. Hooft, K. Hosokawa, J. Hu, A. K. Ichikawa, K. Ieki, M. Ikeda, T. Ishida, M. Ishitsuka, H. Ito, S. Ito, A. Izmaylov, N. Jachowicz, S. J. Jenkins, C. Jesús-Valls, M. Jia, J. J. Jiang, J. Y. Ji, T. P. Jones, P. Jonsson, S. Joshi, M. Kabirnezhad, A. C. Kaboth, H. Kakuno, J. Kameda, S. Karpova, V. S. Kasturi, Y. Kataoka, T. Katori, A. Kawabata, Y. Kawamura, M. Kawaue, E. Kearns, M. Khabibullin, A. Khotjantsev, T. Kikawa, S. King, V. Kiseeva, J. Kisiel, A. Klustová, L. Kneale, H. Kobayashi, L. Koch, S. Kodama, M. Kolupanova, A. Konaka, L. L. Kormos, Y. Koshio, K. Kowalik, Y. Kudenko, Y. Kudo, A. Kumar Jha, R. Kurjata, V. Kurochka, T. Kutter, L. Labarga, M. Lachat, K. Lachner, J. Lagoda, S. M. Lakshmi, M. Lamers James, A. Langella, D. H. Langridge, J. -F. Laporte, D. Last, N. Latham, M. Laveder, L. Lavitola, M. Lawe, D. Leon Silverio, S. Levorato, S. V. Lewis, B. Li, C. Lin, R. P. Litchfield, S. L. Liu, W. Li, A. Longhin, A. Lopez Moreno, L. Ludovici, X. Lu, T. Lux, L. N. Machado, L. Magaletti, K. Mahn, K. K. Mahtani, S. Manly, A. D. Marino, D. G. R. Martin, D. A. Martinez Caicedo, L. Martinez, M. Martini, T. Matsubara, R. Matsumoto, V. Matveev, C. Mauger, K. Mavrokoridis, N. McCauley, K. S. McFarland, C. McGrew, J. McKean, A. Mefodiev, G. D. Megias, L. Mellet, C. Metelko, M. Mezzetto, S. Miki, V. Mikola, E. W. Miller, A. Minamino, O. Mineev, S. Mine, J. Mirabito, M. Miura, S. Moriyama, S. Moriyama, P. Morrison, Th. A. Mueller, D. Munford, A. Muñoz, L. Munteanu, Y. Nagai, T. Nakadaira, K. Nakagiri, M. Nakahata, Y. Nakajima, K. D. Nakamura, A. Nakano, Y. Nakano, S. Nakayama, T. Nakaya, K. Nakayoshi, C. E. R. Naseby, D. T. Nguyen, V. Q. Nguyen, K. Niewczas, S. Nishimori, Y. Nishimura, Y. Noguchi, T. Nosek, F. Nova, J. C. Nugent, H. M. O'Keeffe, L. O'Sullivan, R. Okazaki, W. Okinaga, K. Okumura, T. Okusawa, N. Onda, N. Ospina, L. Osu, Y. Oyama, V. Paolone, J. Pasternak, D. Payne, M. Pfaff, L. Pickering, B. Popov, A. J. Portocarrero Yrey, M. Posiadala-Zezula, Y. S. Prabhu, H. Prasad, F. Pupilli, B. Quilain, P. T. Quyen, E. Radicioni, B. Radics, M. A. Ramirez, R. Ramsden, P. N. Ratoff, M. Reh, G. Reina, C. Riccio, D. W. Riley, E. Rondio, S. Roth, N. Roy, A. Rubbia, L. Russo, A. Rychter, W. Saenz, K. Sakashita, S. Samani, F. Sánchez, E. M. Sandford, Y. Sato, T. Schefke, K. Scholberg, M. Scott, Y. Seiya, T. Sekiguchi, H. Sekiya, T. Sekiya, D. Seppala, D. Sgalaberna, A. Shaikhiev, M. Shiozawa, Y. Shiraishi, A. Shvartsman, N. Skrobova, K. Skwarczynski, D. Smyczek, M. Smy, J. T. Sobczyk, H. Sobel, F. J. P. Soler, A. J. Speers, R. Spina, A. Srivastava, P. Stowell, Y. Stroke, I. A. Suslov, A. Suzuki, S. Y. Suzuki, M. Tada, S. Tairafune, A. Takeda, Y. Takeuchi, K. Takeya, H. K. Tanaka, H. Tanigawa, V. V. Tereshchenko, N. Thamm, C. Touramanis, N. Tran, T. Tsukamoto, M. Tzanov, Y. Uchida, M. Vagins, S. Valder, M. Varghese, I. Vasilyev, G. Vasseur, E. Villa, U. Virginet, T. Vladisavljevic, T. Wachala, D. Wakabayashi, H. T. Wallace, J. G. Walsh, D. Wark, M. O. Wascko, A. Weber, R. Wendell, M. J. Wilking, C. Wilkinson, J. R. Wilson, K. Wood, C. Wret, J. Xia, K. Yamamoto, T. Yamamoto, C. Yanagisawa, Y. Yang, T. Yano, N. Yershov, U. Yevarouskaya, M. Yokoyama, Y. Yoshimoto, N. Yoshimura, R. Zaki, A. Zalewska, J. Zalipska, G. Zarnecki, J. Zhang, X. Y. Zhao, H. Zheng, H. Zhong, T. Zhu, M. Ziembicki, E. D. Zimmerman, M. Zito, S. Zsoldos
TL;DR
This work presents the first measurement of ν_e charged-current pion production on carbon within a restricted phase space using the T2K ND280 near detector. The analysis employs two signal-enriched samples and a template-likelihood unfolding approach to extract differential and total flux-integrated cross sections, comparing them to Neut, Genie, and NuWro predictions. The measured total cross section is $[2.52 ± 0.52 \,(stat) ± 0.30 \,(sys)] × 10^{-39}$ cm^2 per nucleon and is consistently lower than MC predictions, with the largest discrepancy in the region $0.45 < p_π < 1.5$ GeV/$c$ where Neut and Genie overestimate by about $2.4$–$2.5σ$. These results provide a crucial benchmark for ν_e–A interaction models in the exclusive π^+ channel and underscore the importance of reducing backgrounds and improving detection capabilities in future ND280 upgrades to sharpen constraints for oscillation analyses like T2K, NOvA, and future experiments. $
Abstract
The T2K Collaboration presents the first measurement of electron neutrino-induced charged-current pion production on carbon in a restricted kinematical phase space. This is performed using data from the 2.5$^°$ off-axis near detector, ND280. The differential cross sections with respect to the outgoing electron and pion kinematics, in addition to the total flux-integrated cross section, are obtained. Comparisons between the measured and predicted cross section results using the Neut, Genie and NuWro Monte Carlo event generators are presented. The measured total flux-integrated cross section is [2.52 $\pm$ 0.52 (stat) $\pm$ 0.30 (sys)] x $10^{-39}$ cm$^2$ nucleon$^{-1}$, which is lower than the event generator predictions.