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 $ mu-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 `a la Super-Kamiokande because they lead to a substantial enhancement of the number of 1 v{C}erenkov ring retained events.
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