Measurements of $$\pi ^\pm $$ π ± differential yields from the surface of the T2K replica target for incoming 31 GeV/c protons with the NA61/SHINE spectrometer at the CERN SPS

Abstract

Measurements of particle emission from a replica of the T2K 90 cm-long carbon target were performed in the NA61/SHINE experiment at CERN SPS, using data collected during a high-statistics run in 2009. An efficient use of the long-target measurements for neutrino flux predictions in T2K requires dedicated reconstruction and analysis techniques. Fully-corrected differential yields of $$\pi ^\pm $$ -mesons from the surface of the T2K replica target for incoming 31 GeV/c protons are presented. A possible strategy to implement these results into the T2K neutrino beam predictions is discussed and the propagation of the uncertainties of these results to the final neutrino flux is performed.