Neutrino-Oxygen interactions: role of nuclear physics in the atmospheric neutrino anomaly

Abstract

The apparent anomaly in the ratio of muon to electron atmospheric neutrinos first observed by Kamiokande and IMB has been confirmed by Super-Kamiokande and Soudan-2. The experimental analysis, including the asymmetry in the zenithal distributions of the $ μ-\mathrm{type} $ events in Super-Kamiokande gives a strong support to the neutrino oscillation hypothesis to solve the anomaly. In this work we are interested by the role of nuclear physics in the neutrino-oxygen reactions used to detect the atmospheric neutrinos. We point out that multi-nucleon excitations of np-nh type and that nuclear correlations could modify an experimental analysis à la Super-Kamiokande because they lead to a substantial enhancement of the number of 1 Čerenkov ring retained events.

10 pages, 5 eps figures, uses moriond.sty, to be published in the proceedings of the XXXIVth Rencontres de Moriond "Electroweak interactions and unified theories"