Nuclear effects in (anti)neutrino charge-current quasielastic scattering at MINER nu A kinematics

Abstract

We compare the characteristics of the charged-current quasielastic (anti)neutrino scattering obtained in two different nuclear models, the phenomenological SuperScaling Approximation and the model using a realistic spectral function S(p, epsilon) that gives a scaling function in accordance with the (e, e') scattering data, with the recent data published by the MiniBooNE, MINER nu A, and NOMAD collaborations. The spectral function accounts for the nucleon-nucleon (NN) correlations by using natural orbitals from the Jastrow correlation method and has a realistic energy dependence. Both models provide a good description of the MINERvA and NOMAD data without the need of an ad hoc increase of the value of the mass parameter in the axial-vector dipole form factor. The models considered in this work, based on the the impulse approximation (IA), underpredict the MiniBooNE data for the flux-averaged charged-current quasielastic nu(mu)((nu) over bar (mu))+ C-12 differential cross section per nucleon and the total cross sections, although the shape of the cross sections is represented by the approaches. The discrepancy is most likely due to missing of the effects beyond the IA, e.g., those of the 2p-2h meson exchange currents that have contribution in the transverse responses.