Estimate of the theoretical uncertainty of the cross sections for nucleon knockout in neutral-current neutrino-oxygen interactions

Free nucleons propagating in water are known to produce $\gamma$ rays, which form a background to the searches for diffuse supernova neutrinos and sterile neutrinos carried out with Cherenkov detectors. As a consequence, the process of nucleon knockout induced by neutral-current quasielastic interactions of atmospheric (anti)neutrinos with oxygen needs to be under control at the quantitative level in the background simulations of ongoing and future experiments. In this paper, we provide a quantitative assessment of the uncertainty associated with the theoretical description of the nuclear cross sections, estimating it from the discrepancies between the predictions of different models.

Figure 1

Cross sections for neutron [(a) and (c)] and proton [(b) and (d)] knockouts from oxygen induced by the NC QE interaction of neutrinos [(a) and (b)] and antineutrinos [(c) and (d)]. The RPWIA and SF results are shown along with the RFG calculations, for reference.

Figure 2

Same as in Fig. 1 but for the SuSA model, the RMF approach, and the RGF calculations with the EDAI and “democratic” potentials. For comparison, we also include the SF results displayed in Fig. 1.