Date of Award

Fall 2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Physics

Program/Concentration

Physics

Committee Director

Lawrence Weinstein

Committee Member

Sebastian Kuhn

Committee Member

Alex Gnech

Committee Member

Alexander Godunov

Committee Member

Richard Noren

Abstract

Neutrino experiments need neutrino event generators such as GENIE to simulate neutrino-nucleus (νA) interactions in order to measure neutrino oscillations. We need eA data to validate GENIE. GENIE d(e, e′ ) cross sections do not match data in the pion production region. Further analysis of this region can help constrain GENIE models. The goal of this project was to compare 4.244 GeV CLAS12 d(e, e′π±) cross sections to GENIE predictions. We analyzed data from the Fall 2019 run period of Run Group B (RG-B). We applied particle identification, fiducial, and vertex cuts on electron and charged pion candidates. We compared the measured data with events generated with GENIE and another generator called onepigen. We used onepigen to simulate single charged pion production and to calculate radiative corrections for the data. We submitted GENIE and onepigen events to the GEant4 Monte-Carlo (GEMC) simulation of CLAS12 and applied the same cuts we used on the data. We plotted cross sections as functions of W and binned the events in Q2 , θπq, and Pπ. We used 2D (Q2), 3D (Q2 with θπq or Pπ), and 4D (Q2 , θπq, and Pπ) binning schemes. We found GENIE describes d(e, e′π±) cross sections better than expected. GENIE describes the data remarkably well in the 2D bins and some 3D and 4D bins. There are many discrepancies between GENIE and data in the other 3D and 4D bins. The results show that, relative to data, GENIE cross sections increase as Q2 increases, decrease as Pπ increases, and fit best at low θπq. These results will help guide improvements to GENIE in order to reduce the systematic uncertainties in neutrino-oscillation experiments.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/c8zj-mv81

ISBN

9798302882080

Download

Included in

Nuclear Commons

Share

COinS