High-statistics measurement of neutrino quasielastic-like scattering at <E_nu>=~6 GeV on a hydrocarbon target

Abstract: We measure neutrino charged current quasielastic-like scattering on hydrocarbon at high statistics using the wide-band NuMI beam with neutrino energy peaked at 6 GeV. The double-differential cross section is reported in terms of muon longitudinal and transverse momentum. Cross-section contours versus lepton momentum components are approximately described by a conventional generator-based simulation, however discrepancies are observed for transverse momenta above 0.5 GeV/c for longitudinal momentum ranges 3 to 5 GeV/c and 9 to 20 GeV/c. The single differential cross section versus momentum transfer squared ($d\sigma/dQ_{QE}^2$) is measured over a four-decade range of $Q^2$ that extends to $10~GeV^2$. The cross section turn-over and fall-off in the $Q^2$ range 0.3 to $10~GeV^2$ is not fully reproduced by generator predictions that rely on dipole form factors. Our measurement probes the axial-vector content of the hadronic current and complements the electromagnetic form factor data obtained using electron-nucleon elastic scattering. These results help oscillation experiments because they probe the importance of various correlations and final-state interaction effects within the nucleus, which have different effects on the visible energy in detectors.