First measurement of electron neutrino scattering cross section on argon

Abstract

We report the first electron neutrino cross section measurements on argon, based on data collected by the ArgoNeuT experiment running in the GeV-scale NuMI beamline at Fermilab. A flux-averaged νe+ν¯e total and a lepton angle differential cross section are extracted using 13 νe and ν¯e events identified with fully automated selection and reconstruction. We employ electromagnetic-induced shower characterization and analysis tools developed to identify νe/ν¯e-like events among complex interaction topologies present in ArgoNeuT data (⟨Eν¯e