Cross sections for neutrino and antineutrino induced pion production on hydrocarbon in the few-GeV region using MINERvA

Abstract

Separate samples of charged-current pion production events representing two semi-inclusive channels $\nu_\mu$-CC($\pi^{+}$) and $\bar{\nu}_{\mu}$-CC($\pi^{0}$) have been obtained using neutrino and antineutrino exposures of the MINERvA detector. Distributions in kinematic variables based upon $\mu^{\pm}$-track reconstructions are analyzed and compared for the two samples. The differential cross sections for muon production angle, muon momentum, and four-momentum transfer $Q^2$, are reported, and cross sections versus neutrino energy are obtained. Comparisons with predictions of current neutrino event generators are used to clarify the role of the $\Delta(1232)$ and higher-mass baryon resonances in CC pion production and to show the importance of pion final-state interactions. For the $\nu_\mu$-CC($\pi^{+}$) ($\bar{\nu}_{\mu}$-CC($\pi^{0}$)) sample, the absolute data rate is observed to lie below (above) the predictions of some of the event generators by amounts that are typically 1-to-2 $\sigma$. However the generators are able to reproduce the shapes of the differential cross sections for all kinematic variables of either data set.