Improved constraint on the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">M</mml:mi><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">I</mml:mi><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">N</mml:mi><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">E</mml:mi><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">R</mml:mi><mml:mi>ν</mml:mi><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">A</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math> medium energy neutrino flux using <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mover accent="true"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>ν</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo stretchy="false">¯</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:mover><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mi>e</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo>−</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:msup><mml:mo stretchy="false">→</mml:mo><mml:mover accent="true"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>ν</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo stretchy="false">¯</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:mover><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mi>e</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo>−</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:msup></mml:mrow></mml:math> data
L. Zazueta, S. Akhter, Z. Ahmad Dar, F. Akbar, V. Ansari, M. V. Ascencio, M. Sajjad Athar, A. Bashyal, A. Bercellie, M. Betancourt, J. L. Bonilla, A. Bravar, T. Cai, G. A. Díaz, H. da Motta, J. Félix, L. Fields, A. Filkins, R. Fine, A. M. Gago, H. Gallagher, A. Ghosh, R. Gran, E. Granados, Deborah A. Harris, S. Henry, C. Jena, S. Jena, J. Kleykamp, A. Klustová, M. Kordosky, D. Last, A. Lozano, X.-G. Lu, E. Maher, S. Manly, W. A. Mann, K. S. McFarland, B. Messerly, J. Miller, Omar Moreno, J. G. Morfín, J. K. Nelson, C. Nguyen, A. Olivier, V. Paolone, Gabriel Perdue, Komninos-John Plows, M. A. Ramírez, D. Ruterbories, H. Schellman, C. J. Solano Salinas, Hang Su, M. Sultana, E. Valencia, N. Vaughan, A. V. Waldron, B. Yaeggy
Abstract
Processes with precisely known cross sections, like neutrino-electron elastic scattering ($\ensuremath{\nu}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\nu}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$) and inverse muon decay (${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}$) have been used by $\mathrm{M}\mathrm{I}\mathrm{N}\mathrm{E}\mathrm{R}\ensuremath{\nu}\mathrm{A}$ to constrain the uncertainty on the neutrinos at the main injector (NuMI) neutrino beam flux. This work presents a new measurement of neutrino elastic scattering with electrons using the medium energy ${\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$-enhanced NuMI beam. A sample of 578 events after background subtraction is used in combination with the previous measurement on the ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ beam and the inverse muon decay measurement to reduce the uncertainty on the ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ flux in the ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$-enhanced beam from 7.6% to 3.3% and the ${\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ flux in the ${\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$-enhanced beam from 7.8% to 4.7%.