- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Measurement of π0 production in ν¯μ charged-current interactions in the NOvA near detector

S. Abubakar12, M. A. Acero2, B. Acharya33, P. Adamson13, N. Anfimov28, A. Antoshkin28, E. Arrieta-Diaz29, L. Asquith42, A. Aurisano7 et al. (The NOvA Collaboration)

A. Aurisano7, A. Back21,26, N. Balashov28, P. Baldi27, B. A. Bambah18, E. F. Bannister42, A. Barros2, A. Bat3,12, T. J. C. Bezerra42, V. Bhatnagar36, B. Bhuyan16, J. Bian27,32, A. C. Booth38,42, R. Bowles21, B. Brahma19, C. Bromberg30, N. Buchanan9, A. Butkevich23, T. J. Carroll44,50, E. Catano-Mur49, J. P. Cesar44, R. Chirco20, S. Choate25, B. C. Choudhary11, O. T. K. Chow38, A. Christensen9, M. F. Cicala46, T. E. Coan41, T. Contreras13, A. Cooleybeck50, D. Coveyou47, L. Cremonesi38, G. S. Davies33, P. F. Derwent13, P. Ding13, Z. Djurcic1, K. Dobbs17, D. Dueñas Tonguino14,7, E. C. Dukes47, A. Dye48, R. Ehrlich47, E. Ewart21, P. Filip24, M. J. Frank39, H. R. Gallagher45, F. Gao37, A. Giri19, R. A. Gomes15, M. C. Goodman1, R. Group47, A. Habig31, F. Hakl22, J. Hartnell42, R. Hatcher13, J. M. Hays38, M. He17, K. Heller32, V. Hewes7, A. Himmel13, T. Horoho47, X. Huang33, A. Ivanova28, B. Jargowsky27, I. Kakorin28, A. Kalitkina28, D. M. Kaplan20, A. Khanam43, B. Kirezli12, J. Kleykamp33, O. Klimov28, L. W. Koerner17, L. Kolupaeva28, R. Kralik42, A. Kumar36, C. D. Kuruppu40, V. Kus10, T. Lackey13,21, K. Lang44, J. Lesmeister17, A. Lister50, J. A. Lock42, S. Magill1, W. A. Mann45, M. T. Manoharan8, M. Manrique Plata21, M. L. Marshak32, M. Martinez-Casales13,26, V. Matveev23, A. Medhi16, B. Mehta36, M. D. Messier21, H. Meyer48, T. Miao13, S. R. Mishra40, R. Mohanta18, A. Moren31, A. Morozova28, W. Mu13, L. Mualem5, M. Muether48, C. Murthy44, D. Myers44, J. Nachtman25, D. Naples37, J. K. Nelson49, O. Neogi25, R. Nichol46, E. Niner13, A. Norman13, A. Norrick13, H. Oh7, A. Olshevskiy28, T. Olson17, M. Ozkaynak46, A. Pal35, J. Paley13, L. Panda35, R. B. Patterson5, G. Pawloski32, R. Petti40, L. R. Prais33,7, A. Rafique1, V. Raj5, M. Rajaoalisoa7, B. Ramson13, B. Rebel50, C. Reynolds38, E. Robles27, P. Roy48, O. Samoylov28, M. C. Sanchez14,26, S. Sánchez Falero26, P. Shanahan13, P. Sharma36, A. Sheshukov28, S. Chaudhary16, A. Shmakov27, W. Shorrock42, S. Shukla4, I. Singh11, P. Singh38,11, V. Singh4, S. Singh Chhibra38, E. Smith21, P. Snopok20, N. Solomey48, A. Sousa7, K. Soustruznik6, M. Strait13,32, C. Sullivan45, L. Suter13, A. Sutton14,26, S. K. Swain35, A. Sztuc46, N. Talukdar40, P. Tas6, T. Thakore7, J. Thomas46, E. Tiras12,26, M. Titus8, Y. Torun20, D. Tran17, J. Trokan-Tenorio49, J. Urheim21, B. Utt32, P. Vahle49, Z. Vallari34, K. J. Vockerodt38, A. V. Waldron38, M. Wallbank7,13, C. Weber32, M. Wetstein26, D. Whittington43, D. A. Wickremasinghe13, J. Wolcott45, S. Wu32, W. Wu37, Y. Xiao27, B. Yaeggy7, A. Yahaya48, A. Yankelevich27, K. Yonehara13, S. Zadorozhnyy23, J. Zalesak24, and R. Zwaska13 (The NOvA Collaboration)

  • 1Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 2Universidad del Atlantico, Carrera 30 No. 8-49, Puerto Colombia, Atlantico, Colombia
  • 3Bandirma Onyedi Eylül University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Engineering Sciences Department, 10200, Bandirma, Bal𝚤kesir, Turkey
  • 4Department of Physics, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221 005, India
  • 5California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
  • 6Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Prague, Czech Republic
  • 7Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA
  • 8Department of Physics, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi 682 022, India
  • 9Department of Physics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1875, USA
  • 10Czech Technical University in Prague, Brehova 7, 115 19 Prague 1, Czech Republic
  • 11Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Delhi 110007, India
  • 12Department of Physics, Erciyes University, Kayseri 38030, Turkey
  • 13Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
  • 14Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA
  • 15Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás 74690-900, Brazil
  • 16Department of Physics, IIT Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, India
  • 17Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA
  • 18School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500 046, India
  • 19Department of Physics, IIT Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 502 205, India
  • 20Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago Illinois 60616, USA
  • 21Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
  • 22Institute of Computer Science, The Czech Academy of Sciences, 182 07 Prague, Czech Republic
  • 23Institute for Nuclear Research of Russia, Academy of Sciences 7a, 60th October Anniversary prospect, Moscow 117312, Russia
  • 24Institute of Physics, The Czech Academy of Sciences, 182 21 Prague, Czech Republic
  • 25Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA
  • 26Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
  • 27Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, USA
  • 28Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Moscow region 141980, Russia
  • 29Universidad del Magdalena, Carrera 32 No 22-08 Santa Marta, Colombia
  • 30Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
  • 31Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, Minnesota 55812, USA
  • 32School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
  • 33University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi 38677, USA
  • 34Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
  • 35National Institute of Science Education and Research, An OCC of Homi Bhabha National Institute, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
  • 36Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh 160 014, India
  • 37Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
  • 38Particle Physics Research Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
  • 39Department of Physics, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama 36688, USA
  • 40Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA
  • 41Department of Physics, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA
  • 42Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, United Kingdom
  • 43Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13210, USA
  • 44Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
  • 45Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA
  • 46Physics and Astronomy Department, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
  • 47Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA
  • 48Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Physics, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas 67260, USA
  • 49Department of Physics, William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23187, USA
  • 50Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

PDF

Phys. Rev. D 113, 112008 – Published 15 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/t6vj-7hht

Abstract

We present a high-statistics measurement of muon antineutrino-induced charged-current neutral pion production on a hydrocarbon target using the NOvA near detector. The differential cross sections as functions of the momenta and angles of the outgoing pion and muon, the squared four-momentum transfer, and the invariant mass of the hadronic system at an average neutrino energy of 2 GeV are measured and compared with predictions from various neutrino interaction models. The results agree with the GENIE prediction but suggest that other models underestimate the cross section in the Δ(1232) resonance region. These results represent the most precise measurement of antineutrino-induced neutral pion production to date.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (46)

  1. A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (MiniBooNE Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 83, 052009 (2011).
  2. O. Altinok et al. (MINERvA Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 96, 072003 (2017).
  3. M. A. Acero et al. (NOvA Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 107, 112008 (2023).
  4. T. Le et al. (MINERvA Collaboration), Phys. Lett. B 749, 130 (2015).
  5. P. Adamson et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 806, 279 (2016).
  6. S. Mufson et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 799, 1 (2015).
  7. S. Agostinelli et al. (geant4 Collaboration), Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 506, 250 (2003).
  8. L. Aliaga et al. (MINERvA Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 94, 092005 (2016); 95, 039903(A) (2017).
  9. C. Alt et al. (NA49 Collaboration), Eur. Phys. J. C 49, 897 (2007).
  10. J. M. Paley et al. (MIPP Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 90, 032001 (2014).
  11. N. Abgrall et al. (NA61/SHINE Collaboration), Phys. Rev. C 84, 034604 (2011).
  12. D. S. Barton et al., Phys. Rev. D 27, 2580 (1983).
  13. C. Andreopoulos, C. Barry, S. Dytman, H. Gallagher, T. Golan, R. Hatcher, G. Perdue, and J. Yarba, arXiv:1510.05494.
  14. C. Andreopoulos et al., GENIE Physics and User Manual, version 3.0.0 (2018), https://genie-docdb.pp.rl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ShowDocument?docid=2&version=3.
  15. R. Gran, J. Nieves, F. Sanchez, and M. J. Vicente Vacas, Phys. Rev. D 88, 113007 (2013).
  16. A. S. Meyer, M. Betancourt, R. Gran, and R. J. Hill, Phys. Rev. D 93, 113015 (2016).
  17. C. Berger and L. M. Sehgal, Phys. Rev. D 76, 113004 (2007).
  18. D. Rein and L. M. Sehgal, Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 133, 79 (1981).
  19. A. Bodek and U. K. Yang, J. Phys. G 29, 1899 (2003).
  20. U.-K. Yang and A. Bodek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 2467 (1999).
  21. H. Georgi and H. D. Politzer, Phys. Rev. D 14, 1829 (1976).
  22. R. Barbieri, J. R. Ellis, M. K. Gaillard, and G. G. Ross, Phys. Lett. B 64, 171 (1976).
  23. R. Barbieri, J. R. Ellis, M. K. Gaillard, and G. G. Ross, Nucl. Phys. B117, 50 (1976).
  24. T. Yang, C. Andreopoulos, H. Gallagher, K. Hoffmann, and P. Kehayias, Eur. Phys. J. C 63, 1 (2009).
  25. L. L. Salcedo, E. Oset, M. J. Vicente-Vacas, and C. Garcia-Recio, Nucl. Phys. A484, 557 (1988).
  26. E. S. Pinzon Guerra et al., Phys. Rev. D 99, 052007 (2019).
  27. M. A. Acero et al. (NOvA Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 110, 012005 (2024).
  28. M. Martinez Casales, Constraining neutrino interaction uncertainties for oscillation measurements in the NOvA experiment using near detector data, Ph.D. thesis, Iowa State University, 2023.
  29. A. Aurisano, C. Backhouse, R. Hatcher, N. Mayer, J. Musser, R. Patterson, R. Schroeter, and A. Sousa (NOvA Collaboration), J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 664, 072002 (2015).
  30. N. Anfimov, A. Antoshkin, A. Aurisano, O. Samoylov, and A. Sotnikov, J. Instrum. 15, C06066 (2020).
  31. R. E. Kalman, J. Fluids Eng. 82, 35 (1960).
  32. R. Fruhwirth, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 262, 444 (1987).
  33. M. A. Acero et al. (NOvA Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 107, 052011 (2023).
  34. C. L. McGivern et al. (MINERvA Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 94, 052005 (2016).
  35. G. D’Agostini, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 362, 487 (1995).
  36. Roounfold, https://gitlab.cern.ch/RooUnfold/RooUnfold (accessed: September 2025).
  37. L. Brenner, R. Balasubramanian, C. Burgard, W. Verkerke, G. Cowan, P. Verschuuren, and V. Croft, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 35, 2050145 (2020).
  38. A. Hocker and V. Kartvelishvili, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 372, 469 (1996).
  39. J. B. Birks, Proc. Phys. Soc. London Sect. A 64, 874 (1951).
  40. C. N. Chou, Phys. Rev. 87, 904 (1952).
  41. Z. Kohley et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 682, 59 (2012).
  42. B. Roeder, Development and validation of neutron detection simulations for EURISOL, Technical Report, EURISOL Design Study, 2008, report.
  43. T. Golan, J. T. Sobczyk, and J. Zmuda, Nucl. Phys. B, Proc. Suppl. 229–232, 499 (2012).
  44. T. Golan, C. Juszczak, and J. T. Sobczyk, Phys. Rev. C 86, 015505 (2012).
  45. Y. Hayato and L. Pickering, Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 230, 4469 (2021).
  46. NOvA Collaboration, Data Release, https://novaexperiment.fnal.gov/data-releases/.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 113, 112008– Published 15 June, 2026
  • Received 11 November 2025
  • Accepted 8 May 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation