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Proton transparency and neutrino physics: New methods and modeling

S. Dytman1, M. Betancourt2, N. Steinberg2, L. B. Weinstein3, A. Ashkenazi4, J. Tena-Vidal4, A. Papadopoulou5, G. Chambers-Wall2, J. Smith2 et al. (CLAS Collaboration)

J. Smith2, P. Achenbach43, J. S. Alvarado27, M. J. Amaryan3, H. Atac42, L. Baashen28, N. A. Baltzell43, L. Barion20, M. Bashkanov50, M. Battaglieri22, F. Benmokhtar14, A. Bianconi46,26, A. S. Biselli15,37, M. Bondi23,25, F. Bossù11, S. Boiarinov43, K.-Th. Brinkmann36, W. J. Briscoe18, W. K. Brooks45,43, S. Bueltmann3, V. D. Burkert43, T. Cao43, R. Capobianco13, D. S. Carman43, J. C. Carvajal17, P. Chatagnon11, V. Chesnokov40, H. Chinchay33, G. Ciullo20,16, P. L. Cole30,43, M. Contalbrigo20, A. D’Angelo23,39, N. Dashyan53,*, R. De Vita22, M. Defurne11, A. Deur43, S. Diehl36,13, C. Djalali35,41, R. Dupre27, H. Egiyan43,52, A. El Alaoui45, L. El Fassi32, L. Elouadrhiri43,12, M. Farooq33, S. Fegan50, I. P. Fernando51, A. Filippi24, G. Gavalian43,53, G. P. Gilfoyle38, R. W. Gothe41, L. Guo17, K. Hafidi6, H. Hakobyan45, M. Hattawy3, F. Hauenstein43, T. B. Hayward31, D. Heddle12,43, A. Hobart27, M. Holtrop33, Yu-Chun Hung3, Y. Ilieva41, D. G. Ireland48, E. L. Isupov40, H. Jiang48, H. S. Jo29, S. Joosten6, M. Khandaker34,†, A. Kim13, W. Kim29, F. J. Klein43,‡, V. Klimenko6, A. Kripko36, V. Kubarovsky43, S. E. Kuhn3, L. Lanza23,39, P. Lenisa20,16, D. Marchand27, V. Mascagna46,26, D. Matamoros27, B. McKinnon48, T. Mineeva44, M. Mirazita21, V. Mokeev43, C. Munoz Camacho27, P. Nadel-Turonski41, T. Nagorna22, K. Neupane41, D. Nguyen43,49, S. Niccolai27, M. Osipenko22, L. L. Pappalardo20,16, R. Paremuzyan43, E. Pasyuk43,7, S. J. Paul47, W. Phelps12, N. Pilleux6, S. Polcher Rafael11, J. W. Price8, Y. Prok3, T. Reed17, J. Richards13, M. Ripani22, J. Ritman19, A. A. Rusova40, S. Schadmand19, A. Schmidt18, R. A. Schumacher10, M. B. C. Scott18, Y. G. Sharabian43,53, E. V. Shirokov40, S. Shrestha42, N. Sparveris42, M. Spreafico22, S. Stepanyan43,53, I. Strakovsky18, S. Strauch41, J. A. Tan29, M. Tenorio3, N. Trotta13, R. Tyson43, M. Ungaro43, D. W. Upton3, S. Vallarino22, L. Venturelli46,26, T. Vittorini22, H. Voskanyan53, E. Voutier27, Y. Wang31, D. P. Watts50, U. Weerasinghe32, X. Wei43, M. H. Wood9, L. Xu27, and N. Zachariou50 (CLAS Collaboration)

  • 1University of Pittsburgh, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
  • 2Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois, USA
  • 3Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23529, USA
  • 4Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv-Yafo 6997801, Israel
  • 5Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  • 6Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 7Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1504, USA
  • 8California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, California 90747, USA
  • 9Canisius University, Buffalo, New York, USA
  • 10Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA
  • 11IRFU, CEA, Universit’e Paris-Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
  • 12Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia 23606, USA
  • 13University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, USA
  • 14Duquesne University, 600 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15282,
  • 15Fairfield University, Fairfield Connecticut 06824, USA
  • 16Universita’ di Ferrara, 44121 Ferrara, Italy
  • 17Florida International University, Miami, Florida 33199, USA
  • 18The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
  • 19GSI Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung GmbH, D-64291 Darmstadt, Germany
  • 20INFN, Sezione di Ferrara, 44100 Ferrara, Italy
  • 21INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, 00044 Frascati, Italy
  • 22INFN, Sezione di Genova, 16146 Genova, Italy
  • 23INFN, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy
  • 24INFN, Sezione di Torino, 10125 Torino, Italy
  • 25INFN, Sezione di Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
  • 26INFN, Sezione di Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
  • 27Universit’e Paris-Saclay, CNRS/IN2P3, IJCLab, 91405 Orsay, France
  • 28King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  • 29Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea
  • 30Lamar University, 4400 MLK Blvd, PO Box 10046, Beaumont, Texas 77710, USA
  • 31Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4307, USA
  • 32Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi 39762-5167, USA
  • 33University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire 03824-3568, USA
  • 34Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia 23504, USA
  • 35Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701, USA
  • 36II Physikalisches Institut der Universitaet Giessen, 35392 Giessen, Germany
  • 37Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180-3590, USA
  • 38University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia 23173, USA
  • 39Universita’ di Roma Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome Italy
  • 40Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119234 Moscow, Russia
  • 41University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA
  • 42Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122, USA
  • 43Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, Virginia 23606, USA
  • 44Universidad de La Serena, Avda. Juan Cisternas 1200, La Serena, Chile
  • 45Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Casilla 110-V Valparaíso, Chile
  • 46Universit‘a degli Studi di Brescia, 25123 Brescia, Italy
  • 47University of California Riverside, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, California 92521, USA
  • 48University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
  • 49University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA
  • 50University of York, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom
  • 51University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22901, USA
  • 52College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23187-8795, USA
  • 53Yerevan Physics Institute, 375036 Yerevan, Armenia

  • *Present address: Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, Virginia 23606, USA.
  • †Present address: Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho 83209, USA.
  • ‡Present address: Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064, USA.
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 092007 – Published 12 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/7xct-5jcp

Abstract

Extracting accurate results from neutrino oscillation and cross section experiments requires accurate simulation of the neutrino-nucleus interaction. The rescattering of outgoing hadrons (final state interactions) by the rest of the nucleus is an important component of these interactions. We present a new measurement of proton transparency (defined as the fraction of outgoing protons that emerge without significant rescattering) using electron-nucleus scattering data recorded by the CLAS detector at Jefferson Laboratory on helium, carbon, and iron targets. This analysis uses a new data-driven method to extract the transparency. It defines transparency as the ratio of electron-scattering events with a detected proton to quasi-elastic electron-scattering events where a proton should have been knocked out. Our results are consistent with previous measurements that determined the transparency from the ratio of measured events to theoretically predicted events. We find that the GENIE event generator, which is widely used by oscillation experiments to simulate neutrino-nucleus interactions, needs to better describe both the nuclear ground state and proton rescattering in order to reproduce our measured transparency ratios, especially at lower proton momenta.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 092007– Published 12 May, 2026
  • Received 23 August 2025
  • Accepted 23 March 2026
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