Measurement of the Electron Neutrino Charged-current Interaction Rate on Water with the T2K ND280 pi-zero Detector

Abstract: This paper presents a measurement of the charged current interaction rate of the electron neutrino beam component of the beam above $1.5$~GeV using the large fiducial mass of the T2K $\pi^0$ detector. The predominant poriton of the $\nu_e$ flux ($\sim$85 %) at these energies comes from kaon decays. The measured ratio of the observed beam interaction rate to the predicted rate in the detector with water targets filled is 0.89 $\pm$ 0.08 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.11 (sys.), and with the water targets emptied is 0.90 $\pm$ 0.09 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.13 (sys.). The ratio obtained for the interactions on water only from an event subtraction method is 0.87 $\pm$ 0.33 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.21 (sys.). This is the first measurement of the interaction rate of electron neutrinos on water, which is particularly of interest to experiments with water Cherenkov detectors.