Speaker
Dr
Eliecer Hernandez-Gajate
(University of Salamanca)
Description
We present a model for neutrino-induced coherent pion production off nuclei in the energy regime of interest for present and forthcoming neutrino oscillation experiments. It is based on a microscopic model for pion production off the nucleon that, besides the dominant $\Delta$ pole contribution, takes into account the effect of background terms required by chiral symmetry. Moreover, the model uses a reduced nucleon-to-$\Delta$ resonance axial coupling, which leads to coherent pion production cross sections around a factor two smaller than most of the previous theoretical estimates. In the coherent production, the main nuclear effects, namely medium corrections on the $\Delta$ propagator and the final pion distortion, are included. We have improved on previous similar models by taking into account the nucleon motion and employing a more sophisticated optical potential. As found in previous calculations the modification of the $\Delta$ self-energy inside the nuclear medium strongly reduces the cross section, while the final pion distortion mainly shifts the peak position to lower pion energies. The angular distribution profiles are not much affected by nuclear effects. We discuss what we think are the deficiencies of the commonly used Rein--Sehgal pion coherent production model when is used for neutrino energies below 2 GeV.
Primary authors
Dr
Eliecer Hernandez-Gajate
(University of Salamanca)
Dr
Enrique Amaro
(University of Granada)
Dr
Juan Nieves
(IFIC)
Dr
Manuel Valverde
(University of Granada)
