Free nucleons propagating in water are known to produce gamma rays, which form a background to the searches for diffuse supernova neutrinos and sterile neutrinos carried out with Cherenkov detectors. As a consequence, the process of nucleon knockout
induced by neutral-current quasielastic interactions of atmospheric (anti)neutrinos with oxygen needs to be under control at the quantitative level in the background simulations of the ongoing and future experiments. In this paper, we provide a quantitative assessment of the uncertainty associated with the theoretical description of the nuclear cross sections, estimating it from the discrepancies between the predictions of different models.
An accurate description of the nuclear response functions for neutrino scattering in the Gev region is essential for the interpretation of present and future neutrino oscillation experiments. Due to the close similarity of electromagnetic and weak sc
attering processes, we will review the status of the scaling approach and of relativistic modeling for the inclusive electron scattering response functions in the quasielastic and $Delta$-resonance regions. In particular, recent studies have been focused on scaling violations and the degree to which these imply modifications of existing predictions for neutrino reactions. We will discuss sources and magnitude of such violations, emphasizing similarities and differences between electron and neutrino reactions.
