Semi-relativistic description of quasielastic neutrino reactions and superscaling in a continuum shell model

Abstract

The so-called semi-relativistic expansion of the weak charged current in powers of the initial nucleon momentum is performed to describe charge-changing, quasielastic neutrino reactions $(ν_μ,μ^-)$ at intermediate energies. The quality of the expansion is tested by comparing with the relativistic Fermi gas model using several choices of kinematics of interest for ongoing neutrino oscillation experiments. The new current is then implemented in a continuum shell model together with relativistic kinematics to investigate the scaling properties of $(e,e')$ and $(ν_μ,μ^-)$ cross sections.

33 pages, 10 figures, to appear in PRC