Nicola Farina
University of Rome "La Sapienza"
Abstract:
The quantitative understanding of neutrino interactions with nuclei and nuclear matter is needed to the study of many different problems. In the astrophysics environment, neutrino-nucleon and neutrino-nucleus reaction rates are
used as inputs in the simulations of phenomena like supernovæ explosions and
neutron star cooling. In the field of neutrino physics, the
quantitative knowledge
of neutrino-nucleus cross-section is critical to reduce the systematic
uncertainty
of the long baseline oscillation experiments.
It is important to realize that, while neutrinos interacting in stellar matter
typically have energies of the order of few MeV, the energies involved in long
baseline oscillations experiments are much larger. For example, K2K experiment
takes data in the region E_nu = 0.5 − 3 GeV.
We will describe how nuclear many-body theory provide a scheme allowing
for a consistent treatment of neutrino-nucleus interactions at both
high and low
energies. We will show our predictions of the neutrino-nucleus cross section in
the high energy regime and the results of our calculations for the
nuclear matter
weak response in the low energy regime.