Measurement of the Water to Scintillator Charged-Current Cross-Section Ratio for Muon Neutrinos at the T2K Near Detector

The T2K experiment is a 295-km long-baseline neutrino experiment which aims at the measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters. Precise measurements of these parameters require accurate extrapolation of interaction rates from the near detector, ND280, mainly made of scintillator (hydrocarbon), to Super-Kamiokande, the water Cherenkov far detector. Measurements on water and of the water to hydrocarbon ratio, contribute to eliminate the uncertainties arising from carbon/oxygen differences. The cross section on water is obtained by subtraction of event distributions in two almost identical sub-detectors, one of which is equipped with water-filled modules. The measurement is performed by selecting a muon neutrino charged-current sample, in an exposure of 5.80 × 10^(20) protons on target. The water to hydrocarbon cross-section ratio is extracted for good acceptance kinematic regions (only forward muons with momentum higher than 100 MeV), in bins of reconstructed energy, the very quantity used in T2K oscillation analyses, function of the outgoing lepton momentum and polar angle. The integrated ratio is found to be 1.01 ± 2.46%(stat.) ± 1.95%(sys.).