Measurement of ν_μand \barν_μinduced neutral current single $π^0$ production cross sections on mineral oil at E_νO(1 GeV)

Abstract

MiniBooNE reports the first absolute cross sections for neutral current single π^0 production on CH_2 induced by neutrino and antineutrino interactions measured from the largest sets of NC π^0 events collected to date. The principal result consists of differential cross sections measured as functions of π^0 momentum and π^0 angle averaged over the neutrino flux at MiniBooNE. We find total cross sections of (4.76+/-0.05_{stat}+/-0.76_{sys})*10^{-40} cm^2/nucleon at a mean energy of <E_ν>=808 MeV and (1.48+/-0.05_{stat}+/-0.23_{sys})*10^{-40} cm^2/nucleon at a mean energy of <E_ν>=664 MeV for ν_μand \barν_μinduced production, respectively. In addition, we have included measurements of the neutrino and antineutrino total cross sections for incoherent exclusive NC 1π^0 production corrected for the effects of final state interactions to compare to prior results.

13 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables