Pion production in the MiniBooNE experiment

Abstract

Background: Charged current pion production gives information on the axial form factors of nucleon resonances. It also introduces a noticeable background to quasielastic measurements on nuclear targets.Purpose: Understand pion production in neutrino interactions with nucleons and the reaction mechanism in nuclei.Method: The Giessen Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (GiBUU) model is used for an investigation of neutrino-nucleus reactions.Results: Theoretical results for integrated and differential cross sections for the MiniBooNE neutrino flux are compared to the data. Two sets of pion production data on elementary targets are used to obtain limits for the neutrino-nucleus reactions.Conclusions: The MiniBooNE pion production data are approximately consistent with the Brookhaven National Laboratory elementary data if a small flux renormalization is performed while the Argonne National Laboratory input data lead to significantly too low cross sections. A final determination of in-medium effects requires new data on elementary ($p$,$D$) targets.