Some of the recent progress in the physics of pion production induced by neutrinos on nucleons and nuclei is reviewed from a theoretical perspective. The importance of Watsons theorem to reconcile ANL and BNL data with the off-diagonal Goldberger-Treiman relation for the $Delta(1232)$ is discussed. The disagreement between MiniBooNE data and theoretical calculations is presented in the light of the new MINERvA data. The coherent pion production data on $^{12}$C obtained by MINERvA are also compared to different microscopic and PCAC models.
We study one pion production in both charged and neutral current neutrino nucleus scattering for neutrino energies below 2 GeV. We use a theoretical model for one pion production at the nucleon level that we correct for medium effects. The results are incorporated into a cascade program that apart from production also includes the pion final state interaction inside the nucleus. Besides, in some specific channels coherent pion production is also possible and we evaluate its contribution as well. Our results for total and differential cross sections are compared with recent data from the MiniBooNE Collaboration. The model provides an overall acceptable description of data, better for NC than for CC channels, although theory is systematically below data. Differential cross sections, folded with the full neutrino flux, show that most of the missing pions lie on the forward direction and at high energies.
The NuSTEC workshop held at the University of Pittsburgh in October 2019 brought theorists and experimentalists together to discuss the state of modeling and measurements related to pion production in neutrino-nucleus scattering in the kinematic region where pions are produced through both resonant and non-resonant mechanisms. Modeling of this region is of critical importance to the current and future accelerator- and atmospheric-based neutrino oscillation experiments. For the benefit of the community, links to the presentations are accompanied by annotations from the speakers highlighting significant points made during the presentations and resulting discussions.
We compare our pion production results with recent MiniBooNE data measured in mineral oil. Our total cross sections lie below experimental data for neutrino energies above 1 GeV. Differential cross sections show our model produces too few high energy pions in the forward direction as compared to data. The agreement with experiment improves by artificially removing pion final state interaction.
The GiBUU model, which implements all reaction channels relevant at medium neutrino energy, is used to investigate the neutrino and antineutrino scattering on iron. Results for integrated cross sections are compared with NOMAD and MINOS data. It is shown, that final state interaction can noticeably change the spectra of the outgoing hadrons. Predictions for the Miner$ u$a experiment are made for pion spectra, averaged over NuMI neutrino and antineutrino fluxes.
We study coherent pion production in neutrino-nucleus scattering in the energy region relevant to neutrino oscillation experiments of current interest. Our approach is based on a combined use of the Sato-Lee model of electroweak pion production on a nucleon and the Delta-hole model of pion-nucleus reactions. Thus we develop a model which describes pion-nucleus scattering and electroweak coherent pion production in a unified manner. Numerical calculations are carried out for the case of the 12C target. All the free parameters in our model are fixed by fitting to both total and elastic differential cross sections for pi-12C scattering. Then we demonstrate the reliability of our approach by confronting our prediction for the coherent pion photo-productions with data. Finally, we calculate total and differential cross sections for neutrino-induced coherent pion production, and some of the results are (will be) compared with the recent (forthcoming) data from K2K, SciBooNE and MiniBooNE. We also study effect of the non-locality of the Delta-propagation in the nucleus, and compare the elementary amplitudes used in different microscopic calculations.