Measurement of the Neutrino Neutral-Current Elastic Differential Cross Section
Abstract
We report a measurement of the flux-averaged neutral-current elastic differential cross section for neutrinos scattering on mineral oil (CH2) as a function of four-momentum transferred squared. It is obtained by measuring the kinematics of recoiling nucleons with kinetic energy greater than 50~MeV which are readily detected in MiniBooNE. This differential cross-section distribution is fit with fixed nucleon form factors apart from an axial mass, MA, that provides a best fit for MA= 1.390.11~GeV. Additionally, single protons with kinetic energies above 350 MeV can be distinguished from neutrons and multiple nucleon events. Using this marker, the strange quark contribution to the neutral-current axial vector form factor at Q2 = 0, s, is found to be s=0.080.26.