학술논문

Measurement of neutron production in atmospheric neutrino interactions at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
Document Type
article
Source
PHYSICAL REVIEW D. 99(11)
Subject
hep-ex
Language
Abstract
Neutron production in GeV-scale neutrino interactions is a poorly studiedprocess. We have measured the neutron multiplicities in atmospheric neutrinointeractions in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory experiment and compared themto the prediction of a Monte Carlo simulation using GENIE and a minimallymodified version of GEANT4. We analyzed 837 days of exposure corresponding toPhase I, using pure heavy water, and Phase II, using a mixture of Cl in heavywater. Neutrons produced in atmospheric neutrino interactions were identifiedwith an efficiency of $15.3\%$ and $44.3\%$, for Phase I and II respectively.The neutron production is measured as a function of the visible energy of theneutrino interaction and, for charged current quasi-elastic interactioncandidates, also as a function of the neutrino energy. This study is alsoperformed classifying the complete sample into two pairs of event categories:charged current quasi-elastic and non charged current quasi-elastic, and$\nu_{\mu}$ and $\nu_e$. Results show good overall agreement between data andMonte Carlo for both phases, with some small tension with a statisticalsignificance below $2\sigma$ for some intermediate energies.