First evidence of coherent $K^{+}$ meson production in neutrino-nucleus scattering

Neutrino-induced charged-current coherent kaon production νμA→μ-K+A is a rare, inelastic electroweak process that brings a K+ on shell and leaves the target nucleus intact in its ground state. This process is significantly lower in rate than the neutrino-induced charged-current coherent pion production because of Cabibbo suppression and a kinematic suppression due to the larger kaon mass. We search for such events in the scintillator tracker of MINERvA by observing the final state K+, μ-, and no other detector activity, and by using the kinematics of the final state particles to reconstruct the small momentum transfer to the nucleus, which is a model-independent characteristic of coherent scattering. We find the first experimental evidence for the process at 3σ significance.

Note:

added ancillary file with information about the six kaon candidates

neutrino nucleus: interaction
neutrino/mu: secondary beam
neutrino/mu: flux
K: neutrinoproduction
pi: production
neutrino nucleus: scattering
coherence
charged current
suppression
kinematics

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