First double-differential cross section measurement of neutral-current $π^0$ production in neutrino-argon scattering in the MicroBooNE detector
Creators: name: MicroBooNE Collaboration
name: Abratenko, P.
name: Alterkait, O.
name: Aldana, D. Andrade
name: Arellano, L.
name: Asaadi, J.
name: Ashkenazi, A.
name: Balasubramanian, S.
name: Baller, B.
name: Barnard, A.
name: Barr, G.
name: Barrow, D.
name: Barrow, J.
name: Basque, V.
name: Bateman, J.
name: Rodrigues, O. Benevides
name: Berkman, S.
name: Bhanderi, A.
name: Bhat, A.
name: Bhattacharya, M.
name: Bishai, M.
name: Blake, A.
name: Bogart, B.
name: Bolton, T.
name: Book, J. Y.
name: Brunetti, M. B.
name: Camilleri, L.
name: Cao, Y.
name: Caratelli, D.
name: Cavanna, F.
name: Cerati, G.
name: Chappell, A.
name: Chen, Y.
name: Conrad, J. M.
name: Convery, M.
name: Cooper-Troendle, L.
name: Crespo-Anadon, J. I.
name: Cross, R.
name: Del Tutto, M.
name: Dennis, S. R.
name: Detje, P.
name: Diurba, R.
name: Djurcic, Z.
name: Dorrill, R.
name: Duffy, K.
name: Dytman, S.
name: Eberly, B.
name: Englezos, P.
name: Ereditato, A.
name: Evans, J. J.
name: Fine, R.
name: Fleming, B. T.
name: Foreman, W.
name: Franco, D.
name: Furmanski, A. P.
name: Gao, F.
name: Garcia-Gamez, D.
name: Gardiner, S.
name: Ge, G.
name: Gollapinni, S.
name: Gramellini, E.
name: Green, P.
name: Greenlee, H.
name: Gu, L.
name: Gu, W.
name: Guenette, R.
name: Guzowski, P.
name: Hagaman, L.
name: Handley, M.
name: Hen, O.
name: Hilgenberg, C.
name: Horton-Smith, G. A.
name: Imani, Z.
name: Irwin, B.
name: Ismail, M. S.
name: James, C.
name: Ji, X.
name: Jo, J. H.
name: Johnson, R. A.
name: Jwa, Y. J.
name: Kalra, D.
name: Kamp, N.
name: Karagiorgi, G.
name: Ketchum, W.
name: Kirby, M.
name: Kobilarcik, T.
name: Kreslo, I.
name: Lane, N.
name: Lepetic, I.
name: Li, J. -Y.
name: Li, Y.
name: Lin, K.
name: Littlejohn, B. R.
name: Liu, H.
name: Louis, W. C.
name: Luo, X.
name: Mariani, C.
name: Marsden, D.
name: Marshall, J.
name: Martinez, N.
name: Caicedo, D. A. Martinez
name: Martynenko, S.
name: Mastbaum, A.
name: Mawby, I.
name: McConkey, N.
name: Meddage, V.
name: Mendez, J.
name: Micallef, J.
name: Miller, K.
name: Mistry, K.
name: Mohayai, T.
name: Mogan, A.
name: Mooney, M.
name: Moor, A. F.
name: Moore, C. D.
name: Lepin, L. Mora
name: Moudgalya, M. M.
name: Babu, S. Mulleria
name: Naples, D.
name: Navrer-Agasson, A.
name: Nayak, N.
name: Nebot-Guinot, M.
name: Nowak, J.
name: Oza, N.
name: Palamara, O.
name: Pallat, N.
name: Paolone, V.
name: Papadopoulou, A.
name: Papavassiliou, V.
name: Parkinson, H.
name: Pate, S. F.
name: Patel, N.
name: Pavlovic, Z.
name: Piasetzky, E.
name: Pletcher, K.
name: Pophale, I.
name: Qian, X.
name: Raaf, J. L.
name: Radeka, V.
name: Rafique, A.
name: Reggiani-Guzzo, M.
name: Ren, L.
name: Rochester, L.
name: Rondon, J. Rodriguez
name: Rosenberg, M.
name: Ross-Lonergan, M.
name: Safa, I.
name: Scanavini, G.
name: Schmitz, D. W.
name: Schukraft, A.
name: Seligman, W.
name: Shaevitz, M. H.
name: Sharankova, R.
name: Shi, J.
name: Snider, E. L.
name: Soderberg, M.
name: Soldner-Rembold, S.
name: Spitz, J.
name: Stancari, M.
name: John, J. St.
name: Strauss, T.
name: Szelc, A. M.
name: Tang, W.
name: Taniuchi, N.
name: Terao, K.
name: Thorpe, C.
name: Torbunov, D.
name: Totani, D.
name: Toups, M.
name: Trettin, A.
name: Tsai, Y. -T.
name: Tyler, J.
name: Uchida, M. A.
name: Usher, T.
name: Viren, B.
name: Wang, J.
name: Weber, M.
name: Wei, H.
name: White, A. J.
name: Wolbers, S.
name: Wongjirad, T.
name: Wospakrik, M.
name: Wresilo, K.
name: Wu, W.
name: Yandel, E.
name: Yang, T.
name: Yates, L. E.
name: Yu, H. W.
name: Zeller, G. P.
name: Zennamo, J.
name: Zhang, C.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We report the first double-differential cross section measurement of neutral-current neutral pion (NC$π^0$) production in neutrino-argon scattering, as well as single-differential measurements of the same channel in terms of final states with and without protons. The kinematic variables of interest for these measurements are the $π^0$ momentum and the $π^0$ scattering angle with respect to the neutrino beam. A total of 4971 candidate NC$π^0$ events fully-contained within the MicroBooNE detector are selected using data collected at a mean neutrino energy of $\sim 0.8$~GeV from $6.4\times10^{20}$ protons on target from the Booster Neutrino Beam at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. After extensive data-driven model validation to ensure unbiased unfolding, the Wiener-SVD method is used to extract nominal flux-averaged cross sections. The results are compared to predictions from commonly used neutrino event generators, which tend to overpredict the measured NC$π^0$ cross section, especially in the 0.2-0.5~GeV/c $π^0$ momentum range and at forward scattering angles. Events with at least one proton present in the final state are also underestimated. This data will help improve the modeling of NC$π^0$ production, which represents a major background in measurements of charge-parity violation in the neutrino sector and in searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model.