Coherent elastic neutrino scattering on the 40Ar nucleus is computed with coupled-cluster theory based on nuclear Hamiltonians inspired by effective field theories of quantum chromodynamics. Our approach is validated by calculating the charge form factor and comparing it to data from electron scattering. We make predictions for the weak form factor, the neutron radius, and the neutron skin, and estimate systematic uncertainties. The neutron-skin thickness of 40Ar40 is consistent with results from density functional theory. Precision measurements from coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering could potentially be used to extract these observables and help to constrain nuclear models.
Interpretation of current and future neutrino oscillation and electron scattering experiments requires knowledge of lepton-nucleon and lepton-nucleus interactions at the percent level. We study the exchange of photons between charged particles and the nuclear medium for (anti)neutrino-, electron-, and muon-induced reactions inside a large nucleus. While quantum electrodynamics (QED)-medium contributions are formally suppressed by two powers of the electromagnetic coupling constant $α$ when compared to the leading-order cross sections, low-energy modes and the nuclear size enhance the effect by…
The differential elastic cross sections of $^{12}$C -- $^{12}$C and $^{11}$Li -- $^{12}$C nuclei are calculated in the complete Glauber theory. The role of the possible correlations connected to the shell effects in $^{11}$Li nucleus is considered.
We investigate the sensitivity of the medium effect in the high-density region on the nucleus-nucleus elastic scattering in the framework of the double-folding (DF) model with the complex $G$-matrix interaction. The medium effect including three-body-force (TBF) effect is investigated with two methods. In the both methods, the medium effect is clearly seen on the potential and the elastic cross section. Finally, we make clear the crucial role of the TBF effect up to $k_F =$ 1.6 fm$^{-1}$ in the nucleus-nucleus elastic scattering.
The effects of charge symmetry breaking in nucleon electromagnetic form factors on parity- violating elastic electron-12C scattering is studied, and found to be much smaller than other known effects. The analysis of a planned experiment is discussed.
Neutrino-nucleus elastic scattering provides a unique laboratory to study the quantum mechanical coherency effects in electroweak interactions, towards which several experimental programs are being actively pursued. We report results of our quantitative studies on the transitions towards decoherency. A parameter ($α$) is identified to describe the degree of coherency, and its variations with incoming neutrino energy, detector threshold and target nucleus are studied. The ranges of $α$ which can be probed with realistic neutrino experiments are derived, indicating complementarity between projec…
Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$ν$NS), a process recently measured for the first time at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source, is directly sensitive to the weak form factor of the nucleus. The European Spallation Source (ESS), presently under construction, will generate the most intense pulsed neutrino flux suitable for the detection of CE$ν$NS. In this paper we quantify its potential to determine the root mean square radius of the point-neutron distribution, for a variety of target nuclei and a suite of detectors. To put our results in context we also derive, for the first time, …
We analyze the prospect of measuring the neutron form factor of a nucleus through the detection of neutrino-nucleus coherent elastic scattering. We predict numbers of events in a liquid noble nuclear recoil detector at a stopped pion neutrino source. We discuss the precision required to distinguish between different theoretical models for the form factor.
Heavy nuclei at collider energies are a source of high energy Weizsaecker-Williams photons. This photon flux may be utilized to study high energy photon-nucleus interactions. Here we concentrate on the coherent diffractive production of heavy vector mesons on nuclear targets and show how it probes the unintegrated glue of the nucleus in the saturation domain. We present predictions for rapidity distributions of exclusive coherent J/Psi and Upsilon mesons which can be measured by the ALICE experiment at the LHC.
We investigate the property of the high-density nuclear matter probed by the nucleus-nucleus elastic scattering in the framework of the double-folding (DF) model with the complex $G$-matrix interaction. The medium effect including three-body-force (TBF) effect is investigated with present two methods based on the frozen density approximation (FDA). The medium effect is clearly seen on the potential and the elastic cross section for the $^{16}$O + $^{16}$O system at $E/A =$ 70 MeV. The crucial role of the medium effect is also confirmed with other effective nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) interactions. …
Rescattering following a neutrino-nucleus reaction changes the number, energy, and direction of detectable hadrons. In turn, this affects the selection and kinematic distributions of subsamples of neutrino events used for interaction or oscillation analysis. This technical note focuses on three forms of two-body rescattering. Elastic hadron+nucleus scattering primarily changes the direction of the hadron with very little energy transfer. Secondly, a hadron+nucleon quasi-elastic process leads to the knockout of a single struck nucleon, possibly with charge exchange between the two hadrons. Also…
The European Spallation Source (ESS), currently finishing its construction, will soon provide the most intense neutron beams for multi-disciplinary science. At the same time, it will also produce a high-intensity neutrino flux with an energy suitable for precision measurements of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering. We describe some physics prospects, within and beyond the Standard Model, of employing innovative detector technologies to take the most out of this large flux. We show that, compared to current measurements, the ESS will provide a much more precise understanding of neutri…
This article presents a review of the field of inclusive quasi-elastic electron-nucleus scattering. It discusses the approach used to measure the data and includes a compilation of data available in numerical form. The theoretical approaches used to interpret the data are presented. A number of results obtained from the comparison between experiment and calculation are then reviewed. The analogies and differences to other fields of physics exploiting quasi-elastic scattering from composite systems are pointed out.
In order to clear up the sensitivity of the nucleus-nucleus scattering to the nuclear matter distributions of exotic halo nuclei, we have calculated differential cross sections for elastic scattering of the $^6$He and $^{11}$Li nuclei on several nuclear targets at the energy of 0.8 GeV/nucleon with different assumed nuclear density distributions in $^6$He and $^{11}$Li.
We study the sensitivity of detectors with directional sensitivity to coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$ν$NS), and how these detectors complement measurements of the nuclear recoil energy. We consider stopped pion and reactor neutrino sources, and use gaseous helium and fluorine as examples of detector material. We generate Standard Model predictions, and compare to scenarios that include new, light vector or scalar mediators. We show that directional detectors can provide valuable additional information in discerning new physics, and we identify prominent spectral features in b…
We discuss various aspects of a neutrino physics program that can be carried out with the neutrino Beam-Dump eXperiment DRIFT ($ν$BDX-DRIFT) detector using neutrino beams produced in next generation neutrino facilities. $ν$BDX-DRIFT is a directional low-pressure TPC detector suitable for measurements of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$ν$NS) using a variety of gaseous target materials which include carbon disulfide, carbon tetrafluoride and tetraethyllead, among others. The neutrino physics program includes standard model (SM) measurements and beyond the standard model (BSM) ph…
Elastic scattering of alpha-particle and some tightly-bound light nuclei has shown the pattern of rainbow scattering at medium energies, which is due to the refraction of the incident wave by a strongly attractive nucleus-nucleus potential. This review gives an introduction to the physics of the nuclear rainbow based essentially on the optical model description of the elastic scattering. Since the realistic nucleus-nucleus optical potential (OP) is the key to explore this interesting process, an overview of the main methods used to determine the nucleus-nucleus OP is presented. The refractive …
The cross section for coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$ν$NS) depends on the response of the target nucleus to the external current, in the Standard Model (SM) mediated by the exchange of a $Z$ boson. This is typically subsumed into an object called the weak form factor of the nucleus. Here, we provide results for this form factor calculated using the large-scale nuclear shell model for a wide range of nuclei of relevance for current CE$ν$NS experiments, including cesium, iodine, argon, fluorine, sodium, germanium, and xenon. In addition, we provide the responses needed to captu…
The excitation of two particle-two hole final states in neutrino-nucleus scattering, not taken into account in Monte Carlo simulations for data analysis, has been advocated by many authors as the source of the excess cross section observed by the MiniBooNE collaboration in the quasi elastic channel. We analyse the mechanisms leading to the appearance of two particle-two hole states, and show that interference between the amplitudes involving one- and two-nucleon currents, not consistently included in existing calculations, plays a major role. A novel approach allowing to treat one- and two-nuc…
The total and angular differential cross sections of the coherent process $\bar p + {}^AZ \to {}^A_Λ(Z-1) + \barΛ$ are evaluated at the beam momenta $1.5\div20$ GeV/c within the meson exchange model with bound proton and $Λ$-hyperon wave functions. It is shown that the shape of the beam momentum dependence of the hypernucleus production cross sections with various discrete $Λ$ states is strongly sensitive to the presence of the scalar $κ$-meson exchange in the $\bar p p \to \barΛΛ$ amplitude. This can be used as a clean test of the exchange by scalar $πK$ correlation in coherent $\bar p A$ rea…
We study coherent pion production in neutrino-nucleus scattering in the energy region relevant to the recent neutrino oscillation experiments. Our approach is based on the combined use of the Sato-Lee model and the Delta-hole model. Our initial numerical results are compared with the recent data from K2K and SciBooNE.
The quasi-elastic neutrino-nucleus cross section has been calculated by using a Fermi gas model corrected to consider the re-scattering between the emitted nucleon and the rest nucleus. As an example of the relevance of this effect we show results for the muon production cross section on 16O target.
We study coherent pion production in neutrino-nucleus scattering in the energy region relevant to neutrino oscillation experiments of current interest. Our approach is based on a combined use of the Sato-Lee model of electroweak pion production on a nucleon and the Delta-hole model of pion-nucleus reactions. Thus we develop a model which describes pion-nucleus scattering and electroweak coherent pion production in a unified manner. Numerical calculations are carried out for the case of the 12C target. All the free parameters in our model are fixed by fitting to both total and elastic different…
We calculate differential cross sections for proton-nucleus elastic scattering by using a Glauber theory in the optical limit approximation and nucleon distributions that can be obtained in the framework of macroscopic nuclear models in a way dependent on the equation of state of uniform nuclear matter near the saturation density. We find that the peak angle calculated for unstable neutron-rich nuclei in the small momentum transfer regime increases as the parameter L characterizing the density dependence of the symmetry energy decreases. This is a feature associated with the L dependence of th…
Two relativistic approaches to charged-current quasielastic neutrino-nucleus scattering are illustrated and compared: one is phenomenological and based on the superscaling behavior of electron scattering data and the other relies on the microscopic description of nuclear dynamics in relativistic mean field theory. The role of meson exchange currents in the two-particle two-hole sector is explored. The predictions of the models for differential and total cross sections are presented and compared with the MiniBooNE data.
The effects of nuclear re-interactions in the quasi-elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering are investigated with a phenomenological model. We found that the nuclear responses are lowered and their maxima are shifted towards higher excitation energies. This is reflected on the total neutrino-nucleus cross section in a general reduction of about 15% for neutrino energies above 300 MeV.
Development of large mass detectors for low-energy neutrinos and dark matter may allow supernova detection via neutrino-nucleus elastic scattering. An elastic-scattering detector could observe a few, or more, events per ton for a galactic supernova at 10 kpc ($3.1 \times 10^{20}$ m). This large yield, a factor of at least 20 greater than that for existing light-water detectors, arises because of the very large coherent cross section and the sensitivity to all flavors of neutrinos and antineutrinos. An elastic scattering detector can provide important information on the flux and spectrum of $ν_…
A relativistic distorted-wave impulse-approximation model is applied to neutral-current and charged-current quasi-elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. The effects of final state interactions are investigated and the sensitivity of the results to the strange nucleon form factors is discussed in view of their possible experimental determination
Large-angle elastic scattering of alpha-particle and strongly-bound light nuclei at a few tens MeV/nucleon has shown the pattern of rainbow scattering. This interesting process was shown to involve a significant overlap of the two colliding nuclei, with the total nuclear density well above the saturation density of normal nuclear matter (NM). For a microscopic calculation of the nucleus-nucleus potential within the folding model, we have developed a density dependent nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction based on the G-matrix interaction M3Y. Our folding analysis of the refractive 4He, 12C, and 16O…
A relativistic distorted-wave impulse-approximation model is applied to quasi-elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. The bound state is obtained in the framework of the relativistic mean field theory and the final state interaction is taken into account in the scattering state. Results for the charged- and neutral-current neutrino (antineutrino) reactions on $^{12}$C target nucleus are presented and the sensitivity of various quantities to the strange quark content of the nucleon weak current is discussed.
In this article, we study the coherent pion production in neutrino-nucleus interaction in the resonance region using the formalism based on partially conserved axial current (PCAC) theorem which relates the neutrino-nucleus cross section to the pion-nucleus elastic cross section. The pion nucleus elastic cross section is calculated using the Glauber model in terms of pion-nucleon cross sections obtained by parameterizing the experimental data. We calculate the differential and integrated cross sections for charged current coherent pion production in neutrino carbon scattering. The results of i…
Quasielastic double differential neutrino cross sections can be obtained in a phenomenological model based on the superscaling behavior of electron scattering data. In this talk the superscaling approach (SuSA) is reviewed and its validity is tested in a relativistic shell model. Results including meson exchange currents for the kinematics of the MiniBoone experiment are presented.
A previous model on inclusive charged-current quasi-elastic nuclear reactions is extended to include neutral- and charged-current nucleon emission reactions. The problem of outgoing nucleon propagation is treated by means of a Monte Carlo simulation.
We argue that, in many situations, fits to elastic scattering data that were historically, and frequently still are, considered `good', are not justifiably so describable. Information about the dynamics of nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus scattering is lost when elastic scattering phenomenology is insufficiently ambitious. It is argued that in many situations, an alternative approach is appropriate for the phenomenology of nuclear elastic scattering of nucleons and other light nuclei. The approach affords an appropriate means of evaluating folding models, one that fully exploits available e…
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…
The role of the sea quarks to ground state nucleon properties with electroweak probes is discussed. A relativistic Green's function approach to parity violating electron scattering and a distorted-wave impulse-approximation applied to charged- and neutral-current neutrino-nucleus quasi-elastic scattering are presented in view of the possible determination of the strangeness content of the nucleon.
We have investigated the neutrino induced coherent pion production reaction at low and intermediate energies including pion, nucleon and Delta(1232) resonance. Medium effects in the production mechanism and the distortion of the pion wave function are included in the calculation. We find a strong reduction of the cross section due to these effects and also substantial modifications in the energy distributions of the final pion. The dependence on the atomic number is discussed.
A parton picture of inclusive quasi-elastic electron-nucleus scattering, where individual nucleons are treated as (non point-like) partons of the nucleus, is presented. All the necessary target-mass corrections to asymptotic scaling are evaluated and a new scaling variable is obtained. Recent inclusive data from Jefferson Lab are analyzed and shown to scale in terms of the new variable. The new approach allows to extract in a model-independent way the nucleon light-cone momentum distribution in the nucleus.
For the forward going proton and $η$ meson, the coherent $η$ meson production in the $(p,p^\prime)$ reaction on the spin-isospin saturated nucleus occurs only due to the $η$ meson exchange interaction between the beam proton and nucleus. In this process, the nucleon in the nucleus can be excited to resonances $N^*$ and the $η$ meson in the final state can arise due to $N^* \to Nη$. We investigate the dynamics of resonances, including nucleon Born terms, and their interferences in the coherently added cross section of this reaction. We discuss the importance of $N(1520)$ resonance and show the …
In the scattering of positive pions by nuclei the double-charge-exchange (DCX) reaction creates the possibility of formation of pionic atom states in the vicinity of the threshold of this reaction. These quasi stationary states can manifest themselves as resonances in the elastic scattering cross section. The strength and shape of these resonances is strongly affected by an instability of the nucleus created in the DCX channel. It is shown that this mechanism can explain oscillation structures in the excitation function observed in scattering of low-energy positive pions from $^{12}\text{C}$.
The nuclear rainbow observed in the elastic $α$-nucleus and light heavy-ion scattering is proven to be due to the refraction of the scattering wave by a deep, attractive real optical potential. The nuclear rainbow pattern, established as a broad oscillation of the Airy minima in the elastic cross section, originates from an interference of the refracted far-side scattering amplitudes. It is natural to expect a similar rainbow pattern also in the inelastic scattering of a nucleus-nucleus system that exhibits a pronounced rainbow pattern in the elastic channel. Although some feature of the nucle…
Atomic Parity Violation (APV) is usually quantified in terms of the weak nuclear charge $Q_W$ of a nucleus, which depends on the coupling strength between the atomic electrons and quarks. In this work, we review the importance of APV to probing new physics using effective field theory. Furthermore, using $SU(2)$ invariance, we correlate our findings with those from neutrino-nucleus coherent scattering. Moreover, we investigate signs of parity violation in polarized electron scattering and show how precise measurements on the Weinberg angle, $\sin θ_W$, will give rise to competitive bounds on l…
Elastic scattering of antiprotons off $^4$He, $^{12}$C, and $^{16,18}$O is described for the first time with a totally microscopic approach based on the calculation of an optical potential (OP) describing the antiproton-target interaction. The OP is derived using the recent antiproton-nucleon ($\bar{p}N$) chiral interaction to calculate the $\bar{p}N$ $t$ matrix, while the target densities are computed with the ab initio no-core shell model using chiral interactions as well. Our results are in a good agreement with the existing experimental data and the results computed at different chiral ord…
Optical model potentials for elastic nucleon nucleus scattering are calculated for a number of target nuclides from a full-folding integral of two different realistic target density matrices together with full off-shell nucleon-nucleon t-matrices derived from two different Bonn meson exchange models. Elastic proton and neutron scattering observables calculated from these full-folding optical potentials are compared to those obtained from `optimum factorized' approximations in the energy regime between 65 and 400 MeV projectile energy. The optimum factorized form is found to provide a good appr…
The theory of the elastic scattering of a nucleon from a nucleus is presented in the form of a Spectator Expansion of the optical potential. Particular attention is paid to the treatment of the free projectile$\,-\,$nucleus propagator when the coupling of the struck target nucleon to the residual target must be taken into consideration. First order calculations within this framework are shown for neutron total cross-sections and for proton scattering for a number of target nuclides at a variety of energies. The calculated values of these observables are in very good agreement with measurement.
We investigate the use of proton-nucleus elastic scattering experiments using secondary beams of 6He and 8He to determine the physical structure of these nuclei. The sensitivity of these experiments to nuclear structure is examined by using four different nuclear structure models with different spatial features using a full-folding optical potential model. The results show that elastic scattering at intermediate energies (<100 MeV per nucleon) is not a good constraint to be used to determine features of structure. Therefore researchers should look elsewhere to put constraints on the ground sta…
We theoretically investigate the elastic scattering of 50-MeV $Σ^-$ hyperons from $^{28}$Si and $^{208}$Pb in order to clarify the radial distribution of $Σ$-nucleus (optical) potentials. The angular distributions of differential cross sections are calculated using several potentials that can explain experimental data of the $Σ^-$ atomic X-ray and ($π^-$, $K^+$) reaction spectra simultaneously. The magnitude and oscillation pattern of the angular distributions are understood by the use of nearside/farside decompositions of their scattering amplitudes. It is shown that the resultant angular dis…
The change of the transverse spin asymmetry in the scattering of highly-relativistic spin-polarized electrons from nuclei by vacuum polarization effects is calculated within the Uehling approximation. Results are provided for 1 - 100 MeV electrons scattering from 31P, 64Zn, 152Sm, 197Au and 207,208Pb at backward angles.
Background: Calculating microscopic effective interactions (optical potentials) for elastic nucleon-nucleus scattering has already in the past led to a large body of work. For first-order calculations a nucleon-nucleon (\textit{NN}) interaction and a one-body density of the nucleus were taken as input to rigorous calculations of microscopic full-folding calculations. Purpose: Based on the spectator expansion of the multiple scattering series we employ a chiral next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) nucleon-nucleon interaction on the same footing in the structure as well as in the reaction calcul…
The sensitivity of nucleon-nucleus elastic scattering observables to the off-shell structure of nucleon-nucleon t-matrices, derived from realistic NN potentials, is investigated within the context of a full-folding model based on the impulse approximation. Our study uses recently developed NN potential models, which describe a subset of the NN data base with a $χ^2$ per datum $\sim$1, which means that the NN t-matrices are essentially on-shell equivalent. We calculate proton-nucleus elastic scattering observables for $^{16}$O, $^{40}$Ca, and $^{208}$Pb between 100 and 200 MeV laboratory energy…
Background: A recent coupled reaction channel (CRC) study shows that the enhanced oscillation of the elastic $^{16}$O+$^{12}$C cross section at backward angles is due mainly to the elastic $α$ transfer or the core exchange. Such a process gives rise to a parity-dependent term in the total elastic $S$-matrix, an indication of the parity dependence of the $^{16}$O+$^{12}$C optical potential (OP). Purpose: To explicitly determine the core exchange potential (CEP) induced by the symmetric exchange of the two $^{12}$C cores in the elastic $^{16}$O+$^{12}$C scattering at $E_{\rm lab}= 132$ and 300 M…
The sensitivity--or rather insensitivity--of the elastic proton-nucleus reaction to the neutron radius of 208Pb is investigated using a non-relativistic impulse-approximation approach. The energy region (Tlab=500 MeV and Tlab=800 MeV) is selected so that the impulse approximation may be safely assumed. Therefore, only free nucleon-nucleon scattering data are used as input for the optical potential. Further, the optical potential includes proton and neutron ground-state densities that are generated from accurately-calibrated models. Even so, these models yield a wide range of values (from 0.13 …
We study the quasi--elastic contribution to the inclusive $(ν_l,ν_l N)$, $(ν_l,l^- N)$, $({\bar ν}_l,{\bar ν}_l N)$ and $({\bar ν}_l,l^+ N)$ reactions in nuclei using a Monte Carlo simulation method to account for the rescattering of the outgoing nucleon. As input, we take the reaction probability from the microscopical many body framework developed in Phys. Rev. {\bf C70} (2004) 055503 for charged-current induced reactions, while for neutral currents we use results from a natural extension of the model described in that reference. The nucleon emission process studied here is a clear signal fo…
Analytical expressions for the elastic and dynamic form factors (FFs) are derived in the shell model (SM) with a potential well of finite depth. The consideration takes into account the motion of the target-nucleus center of mass (CM). Explanation is suggested for a simultaneous shrinking of the density and momentum distributions of nucleons in nuclei. The convenient working formulae are given to handle the expectation values of relevant multiplicative operators in case of the 1s-1p shell nuclei.
