First Measurement of the Superscaling Variable as a Function of Visible Kinematics in Charged-Current Quasi-Elastic Neutrino--Nucleus Scattering
Abstract
We report the first measurement of the superscaling variable ψ′vis in neutrino--nucleus scattering, using charged-current quasielastic-like νμ-Carbon interactions collected by the MINERvA experiment in the medium-energy NuMI beam. Originally developed to characterize phenomena of scaling with respect to atomic number and momentum transfer in quasielastic electron-nucleus scattering, ψ′ is reconstructed here from visible final-state kinematics (ψ′vis). ψ′vis is used here as an externally calibrated variable whose peak position is sensitive to the invisible nuclear missing energy. We measure ψ′vis as functions of the hadronic recoil ΣTp and muon transverse momentum pTμ, comparing background-subtracted data to five neutrino--nucleus interaction models via a forward-folding technique. The predicted ψ′vis diverges most strongly among model predictions at low ΣTp and pTμ, where agreement with data is also poorest, exposing which models fail to capture the phase-space dependence of the missing energy and therefore the neutrino energy as extrapolated from visible kinematics. Among tested models, we find that the Relativistic Mean Field approach predicts more accurately the ψ′vis peak position.
Related
- Kinematics of Inverse Compton Scattering from Dirac Carriers in Graphene
- Variable-phase methods and data for long-range scattering
- Comment on arXiv:2608.29450: "First Measurement of Solar Neutrinos through Elastic Neutrino-Electron Scattering at the keV Scale"
- Amplitude structure of 3→ 3 scattering in a Mandelstam variable representation
- TDCOSMO 2026: A 3% measurement of the Hubble constant from strong lensing and stellar kinematics
BibTeX
@misc{collaboration2026first,
title = {{First Measurement of the Superscaling Variable as a Function of Visible Kinematics in Charged-Current Quasi-Elastic Neutrino--Nucleus Scattering}},
author = {The MINERvA Collaboration and L. Giannessi and S. Akhter and Z. Ahmad Dar and N. S. Alex and M. Sajjad Athar and J. Felix and L. Fields and R. Gran and E. Granados and D. A. Harris and A. Klustová and M. Kordosky and D. Last and and A. Lozano and S. Manly and W. A. Mann and K. S. McFarland and M. Mehmood and O. Moreno and J. G. Morfín and J. K. Nelson and G. N. Perdue and C. Pernas and M. A. Ramírez and R. D. Ransome and N. Roy and D. Ruterbories and F. Sánchez and H. Schellman and C. J. Solano Salinas and D. S. Correia and V. S. Syrotenko and N. H. Vaughan and A. V. Waldron and L. Zazueta},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.37335},
eprint = {2609.37335},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37335},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - First Measurement of the Superscaling Variable as a Function of Visible Kinematics in Charged-Current Quasi-Elastic Neutrino--Nucleus Scattering
AU - The MINERvA Collaboration
AU - L. Giannessi
AU - S. Akhter
AU - Z. Ahmad Dar
AU - N. S. Alex
AU - M. Sajjad Athar
AU - J. Felix
AU - L. Fields
AU - R. Gran
AU - E. Granados
AU - D. A. Harris
AU - A. Klustová
AU - M. Kordosky
AU - D. Last
AU - and A. Lozano
AU - S. Manly
AU - W. A. Mann
AU - K. S. McFarland
AU - M. Mehmood
AU - O. Moreno
AU - J. G. Morfín
AU - J. K. Nelson
AU - G. N. Perdue
AU - C. Pernas
AU - M. A. Ramírez
AU - R. D. Ransome
AU - N. Roy
AU - D. Ruterbories
AU - F. Sánchez
AU - H. Schellman
AU - C. J. Solano Salinas
AU - D. S. Correia
AU - V. S. Syrotenko
AU - N. H. Vaughan
AU - A. V. Waldron
AU - L. Zazueta
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/22
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.37335
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37335
AB - We report the first measurement of the superscaling variable ψ^′_vis in neutrino--nucleus scattering, using charged-current quasielastic-like ν_μ-Carbon interactions collected by the MINERvA experiment in the medium-energy NuMI beam. Originally developed to characterize phenomena of scaling with respect to atomic number and momentum transfer in quasielastic electron-nucleus scattering, ψ^′ is reconstructed here from visible final-state kinematics (ψ^′_vis). ψ^′_vis is used here as an externally calibrated variable whose peak position is sensitive to the invisible nuclear missing energy. We measure ψ^′_vis as functions of the hadronic recoil ΣT_p and muon transverse momentum p_Tμ, comparing background-subtracted data to five neutrino--nucleus interaction models via a forward-folding technique. The predicted ψ^′_vis diverges most strongly among model predictions at low ΣT_p and p_Tμ, where agreement with data is also poorest, exposing which models fail to capture the phase-space dependence of the missing energy and therefore the neutrino energy as extrapolated from visible kinematics. Among tested models, we find that the Relativistic Mean Field approach predicts more accurately the ψ^′_vis peak position.
ER -