Validation of neutrino energy estimation using electron scattering data

To study neutrino oscillations, the knowledge of the initial neutrino energy is required. This energy cannot be determined directly because neutrino beams have a broad energy distribution. Instead, the initial energy is estimated from the final state particles using two main approaches. It can be determined either from the total energy of all the final state particles or, if the neutrino scatters quasi-elastically from a bound nucleon then the initial energy can be calculated approximately using the scattered angle and the energy of the outgoing charged lepton. However this is not the case in real experiments, where nuclei such as argon, iron, carbon or other heavy nuclei are used to have higher interaction rates. We have applied the methods of neutrino energy estimation to the Jefferson Lab CLAS electron scattering data for 2.2 and 4.4 GeV electrons incident on ³He, ⁴He, C and Fe targets. We show that the energy reconstruction from the scattered electron plus proton provides a better description of the beam energy than the energy reconstruction from the scattered electron alone, however only 16 - 52% of events reconstruct to within 5 percent of the beam energy.