Measurement of the differential cross section for neutral pion production in charged-current muon neutrino interactions on argon with the MicroBooNE detector

Blake, A. and Devitt, A. and Gu, L. and Mawby, I. and Nowak, J. and Patel, N. and Pophale, I. (2024) Measurement of the differential cross section for neutral pion production in charged-current muon neutrino interactions on argon with the MicroBooNE detector. Physical Review D, 110 (9): 092014. ISSN 1550-7998

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Abstract

We present a measurement of neutral pion production in charged-current interactions using data recorded with the MicroBooNE detector exposed to Fermilab's booster neutrino beam. The signal comprises one muon, one neutral pion, any number of nucleons, and no charged pions. Studying neutral pion production in the MicroBooNE detector provides an opportunity to better understand neutrino-argon interactions, and is crucial for future accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments. Using a dataset corresponding to $6.86 \times 10^{20}$ protons on target, we present single-differential cross sections in muon and neutral pion momenta, scattering angles with respect to the beam for the outgoing muon and neutral pion, as well as the opening angle between the muon and neutral pion. Data extracted cross sections are compared to generator predictions. We report good agreement between the data and the models for scattering angles, except for an over-prediction by generators at muon forward angles. Similarly, the agreement between data and the models as a function of momentum is good, except for an underprediction by generators in the medium momentum ranges, $200-400$ MeV for muons and $100-200$ MeV for pions.