# A Measurement of 𝑥⁢𝐹₃^𝜈-𝑥⁢𝐹₃^𝜈̄ and 𝑅 with the CCFR Detector To be published in proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and QCD, Zeuthen, Germany, Apr. 1999.

## 1 Introduction

Wide band neutrino beams provide an unique opportunity to measure $`R`$, the ratio of the longitudinal and transverse structure functions, and the difference between $`xF_3^\nu `$ and $`xF_3^{\overline{\nu }}`$. A measurement of $`R`$ provides a test of perturbative QCD at large $`x`$, and probes the gluon density at small $`x`$. A non-zero $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3=xF_3^\nu xF_3^{\overline{\nu }}`$ originates from the difference between the contributions of the strange and charm seas in the nucleon to massive charm quark production. Thus, a measurement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ can be used to extract the strange sea, and to understand massive charm production in neutrino-nucleon scattering. Previously, information on the strange sea came from the exclusive dimuon events channel ($`\nu N\mu ^{}cX`$, $`c`$ $``$ $`\mu ^+X^{}`$. The dimuon analysis requires both an understanding of charm fragmentation and an acceptance correction for the detection of muons from charm decays. In previous extractions of structure functions , a leading order slow rescaling correction for heavy charm production was applied in order to extract a theoretically corrected $`F_2^\nu `$ which could be directly compared with $`F_2^\mu `$. However, because of theoretical uncertainties in the treatment of massive charm production , this correction is no longer applied in this analysis. Furthermore, the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ plays a crucial role in the extraction of $`F_2`$ at low $`x`$, where there is a long-standing discrepancy  between CCFR and NMC $`F_2`$ data. Therefore, it is important to measure the structure functions without any model-dependent slow rescaling corrections.

## 2 The CCFR experiment

The CCFR experiment collected data using the Fermilab Tevatron Quad-Triplet wide-band $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ beam. The CCFR detector  consists of an unmagnetized steel-scintillator target calorimeter instrumented with drift chambers, followed by a toroidally magnetized muon spectrometer. The hadron energy resolution is $`\mathrm{\Delta }E/E=0.85/\sqrt{E}`$(GeV), and the muon momentum resolution is $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/p=0.11`$. By measuring the hadronic energy ($`E_h`$), muon momentum ($`p_\mu `$), and muon angle ($`\theta _\mu `$), we construct three independent kinematic variables $`x`$, $`Q^2`$, and $`y`$. The relative flux at different energies obtained from the events with low hadron energy ($`E_h<20`$ GeV) is normalized so that the neutrino total cross section equals the world average $`\sigma ^{\nu N}/E=(0.677\pm 0.014)\times 10^{38}`$ cm<sup>2</sup>/GeV and $`\sigma ^{\overline{\nu }N}/\sigma ^{\nu N}=0.499\pm 0.005`$ . The total data sample used for the extraction of structure functions consists of 1,030,000 $`\nu _\mu `$ and 179,000 $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ events after fiducial and kinematic cuts ($`E_\mu >15`$ GeV, $`\theta _\mu <0.150`$, $`E_h>10`$ GeV, and 30 GeV $`<E_\nu <`$ 360 GeV). Dimuon events are removed because of the ambiguous identification of the leading muon for high-$`y`$ events.

## 3 Measurement of differential cross sections

The differential cross sections are determined in bins of $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`E_\nu `$ ($`0.01<x<0.65`$, $`0.05<y<0.95`$, and $`30<E_\nu <360`$ GeV). Over the entire $`x`$ region, differential cross sections are in good agreement with NLO Mixed Flavour Scheme (MFS)  QCD calculation using the MRST  PDFs. This calculation includes an improved treatment of massive charm production. Figure 1 shows typical differential cross sections at $`E_\nu =150`$ GeV. Also shown are the prediction from a LO QCD model, which is only used in the calculation of acceptance and resolution smearing correction. The CCFR data exhibit a quadratic $`y`$ dependence at small $`x`$ for neutrino and anti-neutrino, and a flat $`y`$ distribution at high $`x`$ for the neutrino cross section. Note that the $`y`$ distributions of the CDHSW  differential cross sections data do not agree with those of CCFR data, or with the MRST predictions (this difference is crucial in any QCD analysis).

## 4 Measurement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ and $`R`$

Values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ and $`R`$ are extracted from the sums of neutrino and anti-neutrino differential cross sections. The sum of the two differential cross sections can be written as:

| $`F(ϵ)`$ | $`\left[\frac{d^2\sigma ^\nu }{dxdy}+\frac{d^2\sigma ^{\overline{\nu }}}{dxdy}\right]\frac{(1ϵ)\pi }{y^2G_F^2ME}`$ |
| --- | --- |
|  | $`=2xF_1[1+ϵR]\frac{y(1y/2)}{1+(1y)^2}\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ |

where $`ϵ2(1y)/(1+(1y)^2)`$ is the polarization of virtual $`W`$ boson. To fit $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$, $`R`$, and $`2xF_1`$ at a given $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ is very challenging because of the strong correlation between the $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ and $`R`$ terms, unless the full range of $`ϵ`$ is covered by the data. Covering this range (especially the low $`ϵ`$ region correspoing to high $`y`$) is difficult because of the low acceptance at high $`y`$.

Since the contribution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ to $`F(ϵ)`$ increases with $`Q^2`$ while that from $`R`$ decreases, our strategy is to fit $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ and $`2xF_1`$ for $`Q^2>5`$ where the $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ contribution is relatively larger, constraining $`R`$ with $`R_{world}`$ . ($`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ fits are done only for $`x<0.1`$, because its contribution is small for $`x>0.1`$.) It is reasonable to use $`R_{world}`$ (an empirical fit for all available $`R`$ data), because above $`Q^2=5`$, $`R`$ for neutrino and muon scattering are expected to be the same, and $`R_{world}`$ is in good agreement with the NMC muon data .

In the $`Q^2<5`$ region, where the contribution from $`R`$ is larger, we fit $`R`$ and $`2xF_1`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ constrained to the model predictions. This allows us to study the $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`R`$ for neutrino scattering at low $`Q^2`$. In the $`Q^2>5`$ region, we test which scheme is favored for the massive charm treatment, based on the extracted $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ results. Then the favored scheme is used in constraining $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ for the $`Q^2<5`$ analysis.

Before the structure function extraction, we apply an electroweak radiative correction (Bardin) and corrections for the $`W`$ boson propagator, and a non-isoscalar target (the 6.85% excess of neutrons over protons in iron; this effect is valid only at high $`x`$). The values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ and $`R`$ are sensitive to the energy dependence of the neutrino flux, but are insensitive to the absolute normalization. The uncertainty on the flux shape is estimated by using the constraint that $`F_2`$ and $`xF_3`$ should be flat over $`y`$ (or $`E_\nu `$) for each $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ bin.

In the $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ fit, we use the NLO MFS calculation with MRST PDFs for the $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ (for $`Q^2>5`$), and fit for the level of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ for each $`x`$ bin below $`x=0.1`$. Figure 2 shows the $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3/2`$ data as a function of $`x`$. The CCFR data favor the Fixed Flavour Scheme (FFS)  calculation with the GRV94  PDFs, and also the Mixed Flavour Scheme (MFS) using MRST PDFs. The data do not favor the VFS calculation with CTEQ4HQ  as implemented by Kramer, Lampe, and Spiesberger (KLS) . The difference among the various schemes does not come from the different parton distributions, but rather from the different treatments of massive charm. In fact, all strange sea distributions in these parton distributions agree with the CCFR dimuon data . Recently Olness and Kretzer  pointed out that KLS did not include the LO charm sea diagram in the VFS implementation, as required in the original ACOT’s VFS calculation . The ACOT’s VFS calculations agree with data after the inclusion of the charm sea contribution, as shown in Fig. 2.

Since all three schemes except KLS’ VFS show a good agreement with data, we use a MFS calculation with MRST PDFs (arguably the most reasonable theoretical description of massive charm production currently available) to constrain $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ for the extraction of $`R`$ for $`Q^2<5`$ and $`x<0.1`$. Even for $`Q^2>5`$, we extract $`R`$ in order to investigate its $`Q^2`$ dependence. The extracted values of $`R`$ at fixed $`x`$ vs $`Q^2`$ are shown in Fig. 3. The new data reveal the $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`R`$ at $`x<0.1`$ for the first time ($`R`$ decreases as $`Q^2`$ increases for fixed $`x`$). The NMC data shown in Fig. 3 are integrated over $`Q^2`$, and the two nearest NMC $`x`$ bins are shown together. At higher $`x`$, our measurements agree with the other world data for $`R`$ . Figure 3 also shows a comparison with $`R_{world}`$ with $`m_c=0`$ (muon scattering or with slow rescaling correction in neutrino scattering) and $`m_c=1.3`$ (without slow rescaling correction in neutrino scattering). The CCFR $`R`$ data at $`x=0.015`$ do not show $`R`$ approaching zero as $`Q^2`$ goes zero (as expected in neutrino scattering, but not in electron scattering).

## 5 Conclusions

New measurements of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ and $`R`$ have been extracted from the CCFR differential cross section data. The $`R`$ data are extended to lower $`x`$ and higher $`Q^2`$ than previous measurements. The $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`R`$ at lower $`x`$ region has been measured for the first time. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ data from $`Q^2>5`$ region agree with various schemes for the treatment of massive charm production. Further reduction of the errors in $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ is expected by including lower $`Q^2`$ data. The effect of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$ on the extraction of $`F_2`$ is currently under study. In addition, new data from the recent NuTeV run (1996-97), taken with sign selected neutrino beams, are expected to yield more precise determinations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }xF_3`$, $`F_2`$ and $`R`$ at low $`x`$.