PT Journal
AU SciBooNE Collaboration (Cheng, Gea
   Catala-Perez, J
   Gomez-Cadenas, JJ
   Sorel, M
TI Measurement of K(+) production cross section by 8 GeV protons using high-energy neutrino interactions in the SciBooNE detector
SO Physical Review D
JI Phys. Rev. D
PY 2011
BP 012009
EP 22pp
VL 84
IS 1
DI 10.1103/PhysRevD.84.012009
LA English
AB The SciBooNE Collaboration reports K(+) production cross section and rate measurements using high-energy daughter muon neutrino scattering data off the SciBar polystyrene (C(8)H(8)) target in the SciBooNE detector. The K(+) mesons are produced by 8 GeV protons striking a beryllium target in Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam line (BNB). Using observed neutrino and antineutrino events in SciBooNE, we measure d(2)sigma/dpd Omega = (5.34 +/- 0.76) mb/(GeV/c x sr) for p + Be -> K(+) + X at mean K(+) energy of 3.9 GeVand angle (with respect to the proton beam direction) of 3.7 degrees, corresponding to the selected K(+) sample. Compared to Monte Carlo predictions using previous higher energy K(+) production measurements, this measurement, which uses the NUANCE neutrino interaction generator, is consistent with a normalization factor of 0.85 +/- 0.12. This agreement is evidence that the extrapolation of the higher energy K(+) measurements to an 8 GeV beam energy using Feynman scaling is valid. This measurement reduces the error on the K(+) production cross section from 40% to 14%.
ER