Probing free nucleons with (anti)neutrinos

Abstract

We discuss a method to study free protons and neutrons using ν(ν¯)-hydrogen (H) Charged Current (CC) inelastic interactions, together with various precision tests of the isospin (charge) symmetry using ν and ν¯ CC interactions on both H and nuclear targets. Probing free nucleons with (anti)neutrinos provides information about their partonic structure, as well as a crucial input for the modeling of ν(ν¯)-nucleus (A) interactions. Such measurements concurrently represent a valuable tool to address the main limitations of accelerator-based neutrino scattering experiments on nuclear targets, originating from the combined effect of the unknown (anti)neutrino energy and of the nuclear smearing. To this end, we present a method to impose constraints on nuclear effects and calibrate the (anti)neutrino energy scale in ν(ν¯)-A interactions, which are two outstanding systematic uncertainties affecting present and future long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments.