We present the first study to examine the validity of the relativistic impulse approximation (RIA) for describing elastic proton-nucleus scattering at incident laboratory kinetic energies lower than 200 MeV. For simplicity we choose a $^{208}$Pb target, which is a spin-saturated spherical nucleus for which reliable nuclear structure models exist. Microscopic scalar and vector optical potentials are generated by folding invariant scalar and vector scattering nucleon-nucleon (NN) amplitudes, based on our recently developed relativistic meson-exchange model, with Lorentz scalar and vector densities resulting from the accurately calibrated PK1 relativistic mean field model of nuclear structure. It is seen that phenomenological Pauli blocking (PB) effects and density-dependent corrections to $σ$N and $ω$N meson-nucleon coupling constants modify the RIA microscopic scalar and vector optical potentials so as to provide a consistent and quantitative description of all elastic scattering observables, namely total reaction cross sections, differential cross sections, analyzing powers and spin rotation functions. In particular, the effect of PB becomes more significant at energies lower than 200 MeV, whereas phenomenological density-dependent corrections to the NN interaction {\it also} play an increasingly important role at energies lower than 100 MeV.
We present the results of semi-inclusive neutrino-nucleus cross sections within the plane wave impulse approximation (PWIA) for three nuclear models: relativistic Fermi gas (RFG), independent-particle shell model (IPSM) and natural orbital shell model (NO) in comparison with the available CC0$π$ measurements from the T2K, MINER$ν$A and MicroBooNE collaborations where a muon and at least one proton are detected in the final state. Results are presented as a function of the momenta and angles of the final particles, as well as in terms of the imbalances between proton and muon kinematics. The an…
We study parity violation in quasielastic (QE) electron-nucleus scattering using the relativistic impulse approximation. Different fully relativistic approaches have been considered to estimate the effects associated with the final-state interactions. We have computed the parity-violating quasielastic (PVQE) asymmetry and have analyzed its sensitivity to the different ingredients that enter in the description of the reaction mechanism: final-state interactions, nucleon off-shellness effects, current gauge ambiguities. Particular attention has been paid to the description of the weak neutral cu…
Neutrino-nucleus quasielastic scattering is studied in the plane wave impulse approximation for three nuclear models: the relativistic Fermi gas (RFG), the independent-particle shell model (IPSM) and the natural orbitals (NO) model with Lorentzian dependence of the excitation energy. A complete study of the kinematics of the semi-inclusive process and the associated cross sections are presented and discussed for 40 Ar and 12 C. Inclusive cross sections are also obtained by integrating the semi-inclusive expressions over the outgoing hadron. Results are consistent with previous studies restrict…
The hybrid model for electroweak single-pion production (SPP) off the nucleon, presented in [González-Jiménez et al., Phys. Rev. D 95, 113007 (2017)], is extended here to the case of incoherent pion-production on the nucleus. Combining a low-energy model with a Regge approach, this model provides valid predictions in the entire energy region of interest for current and future accelerator-based neutrino-oscillation experiments. The Relativistic Mean-Field model is used for the description of the bound nucleons while the outgoing hadrons are considered as plane waves. This approach, known as Rel…
Neutrino scattering data and the standard calculations of the cross section show a discrepancy in the low-Q^2 (four-momentum transfer squared) region. The calculations rely on the assumption, called the impulse approximation, that the nucleus the neutrino scatters off can be described as a collection of independent nucleons and therefore only one nucleon takes part in the interaction. It is known from electron scattering that such picture is valid only when transferred momentum |q|>400 MeV/c. For lower |q|'s, the nucleus is probed with a lower spatial resolution and a few nucleons are involved…
We report the results of a study of neutrino-carbon interactions at beam energies ranging between few hundreds MeV and few tens of GeV, carried out within the framework of the impulse approximation using a realistic spectral function. The contributions of quasi elastic scattering, resonance production and deep inelastic scattering---consistently obtained, for first time, from a model based on a realistic description of the nuclear ground state---are compared and analyzed.
Over the past two decades, electron scattering experiments have clearly exposed the limits of the independent particle model description of atomic nuclei. I will briefly outline the dynamics leading to the appearance of strong correlation effects, and their impact on the electroweak nuclear cross sections in the impulse approximation regime.
The analysis of the recent experimental data on charged-current neutrino-nucleus scattering cross sections measured at MiniBooNE requires fully relativistic theoretical descriptions also accounting for the role of final state interactions. In this work we evaluate inclusive quasielastic differential neutrino cross sections within the framework of the relativistic impulse approximation. Results based on the relativistic mean field potential are compared with the ones corresponding to the relativistic Green function approach. An analysis of scaling and superscaling properties provided by both mo…
A microscopic optical potential (OP) is derived from NN chiral potentials at the first-order term within the spectator expansion of the multiple scattering theory and adopting the impulse approximation. The performances of our OP are compared with those of a phenomenological OP in the description of elastic proton scattering data on different isotopic chains. An analogous scheme is adopted to construct a microscopic OP for elastic antiproton-nucleus scattering. The results of our OPs are in reasonably good agreement with the experimental data, for both elastic proton and antiproton-nucleus sca…
Polarization transfer observables for quasielastic proton-nucleus scattering in terms of a complete Lorentz invariant representation of the NN scattering matrix
The nonlocal implementation of the dispersive optical model (DOM) provides all the ingredients for distorted-wave impulse-approximation (DWIA) calculations of the $(e,e'p)$ reaction. It provides both the overlap function, including its normalization, and the outgoing proton distorted wave. This framework is applied to describe the knockout of a proton from the $0\textrm{d}\frac{3}{2}$ and $1\textrm{s}\frac{1}{2}$ orbitals in ${}^{40}$Ca with fixed normalizations of 0.71 and 0.60, respectively. Data were obtained in parallel kinematics for three outgoing proton energies: 70, 100, and 135 MeV. A…
A model based on the relativistic impulse approximation for quasielastic lepton-nucleus scattering is presented. The effects of the final-state interactions (FSI) between the emitted nucleon and the residual nucleus are described by the relativistic Green's function model where FSI are treated consistently with the exclusive scattering and using the same complex optical potential. The results of the model are compared with the results of different descriptions of FSI and with available data for neutrino-nucleus scattering.
We study in detail the influence of the nuclear form factor both on the Born cross section and on the Coulomb corrections to the photo-production of muon pairs off heavy nuclei (gamma Z -> mu+ mu- Z$) and in heavy-ion collisions (ZZ -> ZZ mu+ mu-). Our findings indicate a number of issues which have not been sufficiently described as yet in the literature: (i) the use of a realistic form factor, based on the Fermi charge distribution for the nucleus, is absolutely indispensable for reliable theoretical predictions; (ii) we checked quantitatively that the equivalent photon approximation has a v…
Models developed within the framework of the relativistic impulse approximation for quasielastic (QE) electron and neutrino-nucleus scattering are discussed. Different descriptions of final-state interactions (FSI) in the inclusive scattering are compared: the relativistic Green's function (RGF) and the relativistic mean field (RMF).The results of the models are compared with the recently measured double-differential charged-current QE (CCQE) neutrino MiniBooNE cross sections.
The $^{120}$Sn($p$,$pα$)$^{116}$Cd reaction at 392 MeV is investigated with the distorted wave impulse approximation (DWIA) framework. We show that this reaction is very peripheral mainly because of the strong absorption of $α$ by the reaction residue $^{116}$Cd, and the $α$-clustering on the nuclear surface can be probed clearly. We investigate also the validity of the so-called factorization approximation that has frequently been used so far. It is shown that the kinematics of $α$ in the nuclear interior region is significantly affected by the distortion of $^{116}$Cd, but it has no effect o…
The nonlocality of the microscopic nucleon-nucleus optical potential is commonly localized by the Brieva-Rook approximation. The validity of the localization is tested for the proton+$^{90}$Zr scattering at the incident energies from 65 MeV to 800 MeV. The localization is valid in the wide incident-energy range.
We present a detailed study of charged-current quasielastic neutrino-nucleus scattering and of the influence of correlations on one- and two-nucleon knockout processes. The quasielastic neutrino-nucleus scattering cross sections, including the influence of long-range correlations, are evaluated within a continuum random phase approximation approach. The short-range correlation formalism is implemented in the impulse approximation by shifting the complexity induced by the correlations from the wave functions to the operators. The model is validated by confronting $(e,e^\prime)$ cross-section pr…
We study phenomenologically inclusive spectra of the $^6$Li($π^-$, $K^+$) reaction at 1.2 GeV/$c$ within a distorted-wave impulse approximation with the optimal Fermi-averaging $π^- p \to K^+ Σ^-$ $t$ matrix. We attempt to clarify the property of a $Σ$-nucleus potential for $Σ^-$-$^5$He by comparing the calculated spectra with the data of the J-PARC E10 experiment. The result shows that the repulsive and absorptive components of the $Σ^-$-$^5$He potential provide the ability to explain the data of the continuum spectra in $Σ$ and $Λ$ regions; the strengths of $V_Σ\simeq$ +30 MeV and $W_Σ\simeq…
The availability of the double-differential charged-current neutrino cross section, measured by the MiniBooNE collaboration using a carbon target, allows for a systematic comparison of nuclear effects in quasi-elastic electron and neutrino scattering. The results of theoretical studies based on the impulse approximation scheme and state-of-the-art models of the nuclear spectral functions suggest that the electron cross section and the flux averaged neutrino cross sections corresponding to the same target and seemingly comparable kinematical conditions can not be described within the same theor…
The analysis of the recent neutral-current neutrino-nucleus scattering cross sections measured by the MiniBooNE Collaboration requires relativistic theoretical descriptions also accounting for the role of final state interactions. In this work we evaluate differential cross sections with the relativistic distorted-wave impulse-approximation and with the relativistic Green's function model to investigate the sensitivity to final state interactions. The role of the strange-quark content of the nucleon form factors is also discussed.
The analysis of quasielastic neutrino and antineutrino-nucleus scattering cross sections requires relativistic theoretical descriptions also accounting for the role of final-state interactions (FSI). In the relativistic Green's function (RGF) model FSI are described by a complex optical potential where the imaginary part recovers the contribution of final-state channels that are not included in other models based on the impulse approximation. The RGF results are compared with the data recently published by the MiniBooNE and MINER$ν$A Collaborations. The model is in general able to give a good …
We study phenomenologically a $Ξ^-$ production spectrum of the $^9$Be($K^-$, $K^+$) reaction at 1.8 GeV/$c$ within the distorted-wave impulse approximation using the optimal Fermi-averaged $K^- p \to K^+ Ξ^-$ amplitude. We attempt to clarify properties of a $Ξ$-nucleus potential for $Ξ^-$-$^8$Li, comparing the calculated spectrum with the data of the BNL-E906 experiment. The results show a weak attraction in the $Ξ$-nucleus potential for $Ξ^-$-$^8$Li, which can sufficiently explain the data in the $Ξ^-$ quasifree region. The strength of $V_0^Ξ=$ $-17 \pm 6$ MeV is favored within the Woods-Saxo…
Distorted wave impulse approximation analysis for spin observables in nucleon quasi-elastic scattering and enhancement of the spin-longitudinal response
The relativistic mean field (RMF) model is used to describe nucleons in the nucleus and thereby to evaluate the effects of having dynamically off-shell spinors. Compared with free, on-shell nucleons as employed in some other models, within the RMF nucleons are described by relativistic spinors with strongly enhanced lower components. In this work it is seen that for MiniBooNE kinematics, neutrino charged-current quasielastic cross sections show some sensitivity to these off-shell effects, while for the antineutrino-nucleus case the total cross sections are seen to be essentially independent of…
The Coulomb sum rule for inclusive quasielastic electron scattering in $^{12}$C, $^{40}$Ca and $^{56}$Fe is analyzed based on scaling and superscaling properties. Results obtained in the relativistic impulse approximation with various descriptions of the final state interactions are shown. A comparison with experimental data measured at Bates and Saclay is provided. The theoretical description based on strong scalar and vector terms present in the relativistic mean field, which has been shown to reproduce the experimental asymmetric superscaling function, leads to results that are in fair agre…
We present a complete comparison of semi-inclusive $ν_μ$-$^{12}$C cross-section measurements by T2K and MINER$ν$A collaborations with the predictions from the SuSAv2-MEC model implemented in the neutrino-nucleus event generator GENIE and an unfactorized approach based on the relativistic distorted wave impulse approximation (RDWIA). Results, that include cross sections as function of the final muon and proton kinematics and correlations between both, show that the agreement with data obtained by the RDWIA approach, that accounts for final-state interactions, matches or improves GENIE-SuSAv2 pr…
We present the GiBUU model for neutrino nucleus scattering: assuming impulse approximation, this reaction is treated as a two step process. In the initial state step, the neutrinos interact with bound nucleons. In the final state step, the outgoing particles of the initial reaction are propagated through the nucleus and undergo final state interactions. In this contribution, we focus on the validation of the initial and final state interaction treatment in GiBUU using experimental data for pion-nucleus, photon-nucleus and electron-nucleus scattering.
We calculate the density distribution of protons and neutrons for $^{40,42, 44,48}Ca$ in the frame-work of relativistic mean field (RMF) theory with NL3 and G2 parameter sets. The microscopic proton-nucleus optical potential for $p+^{40}Ca$ system is evaluted from Dirac NN-scattering amplitude and the density of the target nucleus using Relativistic-Love-Franey and McNeil-Ray-Wallace parametrizations. Then we estimate the scattering observables, such as elastic differential scattering cross-section, analysing power and the spin observables with relativistic impulse approximation. We compare th…
The factorization scheme, based on the impulse approximation and the spectral function formalism, has been recently generalized to allow the description of electromagnetic nuclear interactions driven by two-nucleon currents. We have extended this framework to the case of weak charged and neutral currents and carried out calculations of the double-differential neutrino-carbon and neutrino-oxygen cross sections using two different models of the target spectral functions. The results, showing a moderate dependence on the input spectral function, confirm that our approach provides a consistent tre…
We present the investigation of the neutrino-induced strangeness associated production on nuclei in the relativistic plane wave impulse approximation (RPWIA) framework at the intermediate neutrino energies. In this study, the elementary hadronic weak amplitudes are embedded inside the nuclear medium for the description of the exclusive channels of neutrino-nucleus interactions. These amplitudes are extracted using a model-dependent evaluation of the hadronic vertex using the Born term approximation in which the application of the Cabibbo V-A theory and SU(3) symmetry are assumed to be valid. T…
