Analysis of NOvA and MicroBooNE charged-current inclusive neutrino measurements within the SuSAv2 framework

Analysis of NOvA and MicroBooNE charged-current inclusive neutrino measurements within the SuSAv2 framework J. Gonzalez-Rosa ,1G. D. Megias ,1J. A. Caballero ,1,2 and M. B. Barbaro 3,4 1Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear, Universidad de Sevilla, 41080 Sevilla, Spain 2Instituto de Física Teórica y Computacional Carlos I, Granada 18071, Spain 3Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit`a di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy 4INFN, Sezione di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy (Received 23 December 2024; accepted 11 March 2025; published 3 April 2025) In this work we compare the SuSAv2 model, based on the superscaling phenomenon and the relativistic mean field theory, with charged-current inclusive neutrino cross sections from the NOvA and MicroBooNE experiments, whose targets are composed primarily by 12C and 40Ar, respectively. The neutrino energy in these experiments covers a kinematic range from tens of MeV to roughly 20 GeV. Thus, we consider the different reaction mechanisms that contribute significantly to these kinematics, namely quasielastic, twoparticle two-hole meson exchange currents, resonances, and deep inelastic scattering contributions. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.111.073002 I. INTRODUCTION Neutrino scattering processes and their detection through nuclear interactions play a crucial role nowadays in uncovering key aspects of physics, such as charge-parity (CP) violation and the associated matter-antimatter asymmetry, the dynamics of supernovae, and the determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy [1]. The uncertainties in these nuclear interactions are of paramount relevance in the study of these topics. Therefore, the development of neutrino interaction models like the one presented in this work and its subsequent implementation in experimental event generators are essential for the success of neutrino experiments. In the context of neutrino oscillation analyses, various long-baseline neutrino facilities are presently running, or have been completed in past years. They operate at different neutrino energies, ranging from tens of MeV to several GeV, peaking their fluxes at around 0.6–0.8 GeV in the case of MiniBooNE [2],MicroBooNE[3],orT2K[4], but also at higher energies—roughly from 2 to 6 GeV—in MINERvA [5] or NOvA [6]. Future experiments, such as DUNE [7] and Hyper-Kamiokande [8], will also be able to explore larger neutrino energies. The characterization of neutrino oscillation properties in these experiments depends on reconstruction methods based on the final-state particles detected after the reactions of neutrinos with the targets in the detectors. This process relies on Monte Carlo event generators [9–14] that simulate the experimental conditions and the nuclear models implemented in them. The role of the different nuclear reaction mechanisms in these neutrino interactions is largely dependent on the neutrino energy range. In the domain from a few MeV to a few GeV, the quasielastic (QE) regime is very prominent. This regime is very important in the MicroBooNE or T2K experiments and is characterized by processes having one nucleon knocked out in the final state. Another relevant contribution in this domain is the emission of two nucleons, corresponding to the excitation of two-particle two-hole (2p2h) states induced by meson-exchange currents (MEC). This process is sometimes also indicated by MEC or 2p2h-MEC. As the energy transferred from the neutrino to the target increases, the nucleons can be excited forming resonances which rapidly decay, emitting pions or other mesons. This regime is called the resonance region (RES) where at similar kinematics there are also other inelasticities linked to nonresonant meson production. At larger energies, the probe starts to interact with the quarks inside the nucleons, opening the deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) channel. These high-energy contributions are of particular relevance for MINERvA or NOvA and also for future experiments like DUNE [7] and HyperKamiokande [8]. Measurements in neutrino experiments are diverse, focusing on various channels classified on the basis of the observed final states. “CC-inclusive”measurements involve detecting only the final lepton in charged-current (CC) reactions, with all of the aforementioned channels contributing to the cross section. The “CC1pi”channel refers to events in which a single pion is observed in the final state. Other common measurements include “CC0π” Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3. PHYSICAL REVIEW D 111, 073002 (2025) 2470-0010=2025=111(7)=073002(13) 073002-1 Published by the American Physical Society and “semi-inclusive”channels. The CC0πchannel involves CC events where no pions are detected in the final state. This cross section is expected to be dominated by QE scattering and 2p2h contributions. However, if a resonance is produced and the pion from its decay is subsequently reabsorbed by the nucleus, an event with the same topology will still be detected. Therefore, pion absorption effects must be accounted for in CC0πmeasurements. In semiinclusive measurements, one or more protons and/or other hadrons are detected in coincidence with the lepton, providing access to the hadrons’kinematics. These measurements are particularly sensitive to the nuclear modeling incorporated into theoretical calculations. In this work, we focus on CC-inclusive measurements from the NOvA and MicroBooNE experiments, having analyzed CC0πand semi-inclusive processes in previous works [15–18], and we compare these data with predictions for the QE and inelastic channels from the SuSAv2 model [19–21], which is based on the relativistic mean field (RMF) theory and the superscaling phenomenon, and that has been partially implemented in the event generator GENIE [22,23]. The 2p2h channel is obtained following the relativistic Fermi gas (RFG)-based calculations of [24,25]. More details about the theoretical description of the different reaction mechanisms and their main features are given in the next section. Note also that the nuclear targets analyzed in this work differ from the carbon-based ones from other experiments such as T2K or MINERvA. The NOvA near detector, located at Fermilab, is aligned with the NuMI neutrino beam. This beam interacts with a target composed of 67% carbon, 16% chlorine, 11% hydrogen, 3% titanium, and 3% oxygen, along with trace amounts of other elements [6,26]. The NOvA experiment also employs a far detector but it will not be the object of this study. Moreover, the MicroBooNE experiment [27], also located at Fermilab, operates on the Booster Neutrino Beamline and uses a liquid argon time projection chamber as its detector, with a target primarily composed of argon. The MicroBooNE’s argon-based detector provides detailed insights into the interaction properties of the neutrinos, while the NOvA detectors’carbon-rich targets are particularly relevant for oscillation and CP violation studies. In what follows, we present the theoretical formalism in Sec. II, describing the features of the different reaction mechanisms and detailing the concept of superscaling within the SuSAv2 framework. In Sec. III, we show and discuss our theoretical predictions in comparison with CC-inclusive neutrino cross section data, first for NOvA (Sec. III A) and later for MicroBooNE (Sec. III B). Finally, we draw our conclusions in Sec. IV. II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND In this work, the comparison with measurements from the experiments mentioned above will be carried out using the SuSAv2 model for the QE and inelastic regimes together with RFG-based 2p2h calculations from [24,25]. The SuSAv2 model [18–20,28] is based on the relativistic mean field theory [29,30] and the superscaling phenomenon exhibited by the large amount of inclusive lepton-nucleus scattering data [31]. In the RMF theory, the bound and scattered nucleon wave functions are solutions of the Dirac-Hartree equation in the presence of energyindependent real scalar and vector potentials, with parameters fitted to the saturation properties of nuclear matter. On the other hand, superscaling is related to the general behavior observed in the nuclear response of different nuclear targets to a leptonic probe for different values of the momentum transferred to the nucleus. Specifically, if the double-differential inclusive lepton-nucleus cross section, with respect to the energy transfer ωand the solid scattering angle Ω, is divided by an appropriate single-nucleon cross section, it becomes independent on both the transferred momentum qand the nuclear species, the latter being characterized by the Fermi momentum kF. This yields a dependence on a single variable, ψ, known as the scaling variable. This property is satisfied when qexceeds approximately 400 MeV, namely in a region where low-energy nuclear effects are not prominent. In the superscaling approach (SuSA), the cross section can thus be expressed as the product of a single-nucleon cross section and a scaling function fðψÞ, which encapsulates information about the nuclear structure and dynamics. This factorization is assumed to hold across the entire energy spectrum, covering various nuclear processes, from quasielastic to deep inelastic scattering, each process being associated with a different single-nucleon function. In the first SuSA approach [32], the scaling function was extracted from quasielastic electron scattering (e,e0) data as fðψÞ¼ d2σ dΩedω σMottðVLGee0 LþVTGee0 TÞ;ð1Þ where σMott is the Mott cross section, VL;T are the leptonic kinematic factors, and Gee0 L;T are the elastic single-nucleon responses dependent on the electric and magnetic form factors of the nucleon. A more detailed description of the superscaling approach can be found in [20,28,32–36]. This general feature enables to extract experimental information about the nuclear dynamics in these processes and it should also be reproduced by all theoretical nuclear models. In the case of the RMF model, the superscaling behavior is well fulfilled, reproducing the experimental scaling data from electron reactions as well as electron scattering data in general. Thus, an improved version of the SuSA model, called SuSAv2, was developed for the quasielastic region, using the scaling functions obtained from RMF and relativistic plane wave impulse approximation calculations [19,20] for electron and neutrino processes. Within the SuSAv2 framework, the information from RMF is used to obtain a complete set of scaling functions that permit to J. GONZALEZ-ROSA et al. PHYS. REV. D 111, 073002 (2025) 073002-2 reproduce the complex RMF microscopic calculations in a straightforward formalism and that embodies the nuclear dependence of lepton-nucleus interactions. The SuSAv2 model, originally developed for the quasielastic (QE) regime, was subsequently developed for the inelastic regime for electrons [20] and later for neutrinos [21,37]. In these works, this approach has yielded an overall agreement with (e,e0) data and with MicroBooNE, T2K, ArgoNEUT, and MINERvA measurements. Within this framework, and for charged-current (CC) quasielastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, the differential cross section can be written in the general form: d2σ dΩdpl ¼σ0ðVCCRCC þ2VCLRCL þVLLRLL þVTRTþ2VT0RT0Þð2Þ in terms of the σ0factor, the leptonic kinematic factors (VK), and the nuclear response functions (RK) that depend on the elastic single-nucleon response functions and the scaling functions as detailed in [37], and where plis the three-momentum of the outgoing lepton. Moreover, in the inelastic regime, the nuclear responses are written in terms of the single-nucleon inelastic structure functions, Ginel K, and of the scaling function, fðψÞ,as follows: Rinel Kðq;ωÞ¼N2TFm3 N k3 FqZμmax X μmin X dμXμXfSuSAv2ðψXÞGinel K;ð3Þ where Nis the number of nucleons participating in the reaction, kFis the Fermi momentum, and TF≡ ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi m2 Nþk2 F p−mNis the Fermi kinetic energy. fSuSAv2is the SuSAv2 scaling function, μXis the reduced invariant mass (μX¼WX=mN), and ψXis the generalization of the scaling variable ψfrom the QE to the inelastic regime as shown in [21]. Depending on the limits of the integral (3) and on the inelastic structure functions Ginel Kemployed, we can focus on the different channels that contribute to the full inelastic regime, such as resonance production or DIS. In the case of the resonance regime, we have recently incorporated the dynamical coupled-channels (DCC) model from the Osaka group [38–40] into our framework in the so-called SuSAv2-DCC approach [37], which is valid in the region WX≤2.1GeV and Q2≤3GeV [38]. The DCC model provides a very accurate description of the nucleon resonances based on extensive analyses from Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) data. It is also worth mentioning that the description of single-nucleon inelastic structure functions in most resonance models is based on either phenomenological fits of experimental data that account for the different nucleon resonances and other effects or extrapolations of QCD results to low-mid kinematics. The most advanced approaches in this domain are the above-mentioned DCC model [38–40] and the M. Kabirnezhad et al. Model [41–43] approach. Moreover, the description of nuclear dynamics in these resonance models varies and goes from simple RFG-based approaches to more microscopic descriptions such as pion-production RMF models [30,44]. Recently, there have also been efforts from theoretical groups to improve descriptions of nucleon distortions in lepton-induced single-pion production via microscopic calculations [45]. In the SuSAv2-inelastic model, deep inelastic scattering contributions are considered as processes not taken into account by the DCC approach below or above WX¼ 2.1GeV. In this case, we define the DIS contributions above the resonance region described by DCC as “TrueDIS”and within this resonance region as “SoftDIS.”For TrueDIS, the limits are Wmin X¼2.1GeV and Wmax X¼mNþω−Es,with Esbeing the separation energy. The SoftDIS contribution shares the kinematical limits of the DCC model and is obtained as the SuSAv2-inelastic result minus the SuSAv2DCC one. More details can be found in [37]. For the DIS regime, together with the SuSAv2 scaling functions, we can employ parton distribution functions (PDFs) [46–49] or phenomenological single-nucleon structure functions derived from fits to electron scattering data, such as those from the Bosted-Christy or Bodek-Ritchie parametrizations [50–55]. In this work, the single-nucleon inelastic structure functions for the DIS contributions are based on the Bodek-Ritchie (BR) parametrization for consistency with our previous article [37], because PDFs do not work well at Q2below 0.8GeV2and BostedChristy (BC) is not suitable for high kinematics (ω≳10 GeV). Nevertheless, at MicroBooNE kinematics, BC results do not show noticeable differences with BR ones. For the νμNOvA case, where the flux goes up to 20 GeV, differences up to 20% at very forward angles can be observed for the SoftDIS channel, being BC larger. However, for the TrueDIS channel, which explores higher kinematics, the limitations in the BC approach reduce its contribution, compensating the increase in the SoftDIS channel, which eventually leads to similar results with regard to BR. Note also that unlike other channels, deepinelastic scattering contributions are very dependent on the flux high-energy tail. For the resonance regime, we employ the DCC functions in combination with the SuSAv2 scaling functions, which, together with the DIS contributions, were successfully applied for the analysis of electron scattering data as well as for CC-inclusive T2K and MINERvA measurements on carbon targets [37]. In this work, we will continue these previous analyses by testing the full SuSAv2 model with CC-inclusive MicroBooNE [56,57] and NOvA [6,58] data on different targets. The contributions considered for the different nuclear reaction channels in Sec. III, with their corresponding acronyms, are summarized in Table Ias well as the model used to describe them. ANALYSIS OF NOVA AND MICROBOONE CHARGED-CURRENT …PHYS. REV. D 111, 073002 (2025) 073002-3 III. RESULTS In this section, we compare the NOvA and MicroBooNE CC-inclusive measurements with our predictions using the SuSAv2 model for the QE and inelastic regimes together with the RFG-MEC model as described in Table I. In the following subsections, a χ2-based analysis is also presented when analyzing the results obtained. A. NOvA In Fig. 1, we compare our models with the NOvA doubledifferential electron neutrino cross section for a target composed of carbon, hydrogen, chlorine, titanium, and oxygen where NOvA νeflux peaks around 2.4 GeV [6,26]. In general, in the region cos θe<0.97, the quasielastic regime represents roughly 25% of the total cross section, followed by the resonance contribution with 20%–25%. The combination of the True DIS and Soft DIS channels is around 40% of the total. In contrast, in the last plot at very forward angles, the DIS contributions fall below 15%. Both the resonance and quasielastic channels are individually 35% of the strength of the total result. The decrease in DIS channels at very forward angles is mainly due to the limits of the neutrino energy (1≤Eν≤6GeV) which also limits the value of the energy and momentum transferred to the nucleus. We observe that high-energy resonances and inelasticities are produced at large transferred momentum; thus, the constraint in neutrino kinematics reduces these contributions as we explore more forward angles, i.e., when the available transferred energy decreases. Our predictions tend to reproduce well the shape and the value of the experimental results apart from some underestimation at very forward angles and high electron energies which can be ascribed to some missing strength in the inelastic channels. Note also that the threshold of 6 GeV in the neutrino energy limits the inelastic contributions at high electron kinematics, as the energy transfer will not be, in general, high enough to produce resonance and other inelasticities in a significant way. Nevertheless, our χ2value is a bit smaller than the one TABLE I. List of acronyms used in the manuscript for the different nuclear reaction channels and the model used for each one. Acronym Definition of the reaction channel Model QE Quasielastic SuSAv2 QE MEC 2p2h MEC excitations RFG-MEC RES Resonant SuSAv2-DCC SoftDIS Deep inelastic scattering SuSAv2 inelastic—SuSAv2-DCC and nonresonant (WX<2.1GeV) TrueDIS Deep inelastic scattering (WX>2.1GeV) SuSAv2 inelastic 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 0 10 20 30 40 1.0 1.3 1.6 1.9 0 10 20 30 40 50 1.0 1.4 1.8 2.2 2.6 3.0 Ee (GeV) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 d2/dcos edEe (10 -39 cm 2/GeV/nucleon) 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 Ee (GeV) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 QE MEC RES TrueDIS SoftDIS Exp. Data 2=14.4 FIG. 1. NOvA CC inclusive flux-averaged double-differential cross section per target nucleon in bins of the electron scattering angle (labeled in the panels) as a function of the electron energy. The different theoretical calculations are shown individually. Data are from [6]. J. GONZALEZ-ROSA et al. PHYS. REV. D 111, 073002 (2025) 073002-4 FIG. 2. NOvA CC inclusive flux-averaged double-differential cross section per target nucleon in bins of the muon scattering angle (labeled in the panels) as a function of the muon kinetic energy. The different theoretical calculations are shown individually. Data are from [58]. In the legend we show the values of χ2and χ2 shape ¼χ2Fshape, where Fshape is the only-shape factor, whose value for our predictions is 3.0. ANALYSIS OF NOVA AND MICROBOONE CHARGED-CURRENT …PHYS. REV. D 111, 073002 (2025) 073002-5 from other models used in generators such as NuWro, GiBUU, or GENIE [6]. In Fig. 2, the NOvA double-differential muon neutrino cross section is represented for the same target as in the νe case. The average νμenergy is around 4 GeV, peaking at 2GeV[26,58]. Both the SuSAv2 RES and QE contributions are very similar and around 20% of the total cross section, being around 35% at very forward angles. Approximately half of the contribution comes from the DIS channels, which decrease to 20% at very forward angles. These large contributions, not present in the νecase, come from the extensive tail of the muon neutrino flux to very high energies larger than 6 GeV. In general, our results tend to underestimate the cross section, especially in the region where the cross section peaks. In contrast, at high muon kinetic energies, we overpredict the experimental data in some cases, mostly due to the deep inelastic scattering contribution. The difference in the relevance of the different contributions in comparison with the NOvA νecase comes from the constraint of the tail in the neutrino flux not present in the muon data, which as commented previously has an important effect in the inelastic channels. Our χ2value is comparable with the other models. Nevertheless, the shape-only factor for χ2is 3, which is larger than the other Monte Carlo models. This increment is expected by observing the behavior of the deep inelastic scattering contribution. Note that the shape-only factor is calculated following the statistical analysis defined by the NOνA collaboration in [58], where it is concluded that normalization issues are not enough to reduce the discrepancies between data and simulations. This is similar in our case, where our model predicts a remarkably different total cross section from the experimental measurements. It is important to remark that, in our description of the full inelastic regime, we could be missing some contributions mostly related with nonresonant processes and the interference between the different inelastic channels, among other inputs. On the one hand, in order to consider nonresonant contributions and other effects in the SoftDIS regime, we subtract from the full SuSAv2-inelastic model the contributions from the SuSAv2-DCC approach in the kinematical region where the DCC model is valid, namely WX≤2.1GeV and Q2≤3GeV2=c2. On the other hand, at higher kinematics, i.e., within the TrueDIS regime, where the DCC prescription cannot be applied, we use the full SuSAv2-inelastic model with phenomenological structure functions, as defined in Sec. II. This presents some limitations either at low Q2values (PDFs approaches) or at very high kinematics (BR and BC parametrizations). Thus, the main uncertainties in our inelastic models come mainly from the lack of a proper microscopic description of the nonresonant regime and also from the inelastic structure functions employed in the DIS channels. B. MicroBooNE In Fig. 3, we show the MicroBooNE νμCC inclusive total and differential cross sections using argon as a target. The flux peaks at 0.8 GeV [3,27], considerably lower than NOvA. 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 E (GeV) 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 (E )/<E > (10 -38 cm 2/GeV/nucleon) 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 E (GeV) 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 d /dE (10 -38 cm 2/GeV/nucleon) QE MEC RES TrueDIS SoftDIS Exp Data Exp. Data (2019) int. All Contr. 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 =E - E (GeV) 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 d /d (10 -38 cm 2/GeV/nucleon) FIG. 3. Left: MicroBooNE CC inclusive total cross section on 40Ar per target nucleon in terms of the neutrino energy. Center: MicroBooNE CC inclusive flux-averaged single-differential cross section in terms of the muon energy. Right: MicroBooNE CC inclusive flux-averaged single-differential cross section versus the transferred energy. The contributions of the different channels are shown before the application of the smearing matrix. The smearing matrix is only applied to the total contribution. Data are from [56]. J. GONZALEZ-ROSA et al. PHYS. REV. D 111, 073002 (2025) 073002-6 Unlike NOvA, the comparison with these MicroBooNE data, via the so-called Wiener-singular value descomposition method [59], requires the application of an additional smearing matrix that transforms the theoretical results with respect to the true physics quantities and that accounts for the regularization and bias of the measurement as described in [56]. The application of this smearing matrix must be done to the final result. Thus, in the following plots, we show the total contribution smeared (dashed lines) together with the individual contributions for each channel, namely QE, MEC, RES, SoftDIS, and TrueDIS before the application of this smearing matrix so that the net effect of this transformation can be observed. In the left panel of Fig. 3, we show the total cross section weighted by the flux, in which the value of a bin that goes from Eini νto Eend νis calculated using the following expression: hσi¼ 1 REend ν Eini νdEνϕðEνÞZEend ν Eini ν dEνZþ1 −1 dcos θ ×ZdEμ d2σ dcos θdEμ ϕðEνÞ;ð4Þ where ϕðEνÞis the neutrino flux. We have observed that this result is very similar to the one obtained for the total νμAr cross section without considering any flux. Only small differences appear for the most extreme Eνbins which are due to the rapid increase or decrease of the flux for that particular kinematics. In the middle and right panels of Fig. 3we show the MicroBooNE flux-averaged single differential cross sections as a function of the muon and transferred energies, respectively. In all panels, a similar underestimation of the data is noticed that can be ascribed to some missing strength in the inelastic channels, although this effect is not observed in a previous work [37] compared to other experiments at similar kinematics. In general, noninelastic contributions are around 40% for the total cross section, around 65% for the single-differential ones. On the other hand, the resonance channel gives 36% of the strength of the total cross section and 30% for the single-differential cross section. The underestimation is also exhibited by GENIE, NEUT, and other Monte Carlo simulations [56]. Note also that the MicroBooNE data [56] used in these plots exhibit an increase with regard to previous MicroBooNE measurements [3], where our models produced a good comparison with the data. As we can observe, the total cross section measured by MicroBooNE is larger than our prediction. In contrast with these results, our previous analysis [37] of T2K data on a hydrocarbon target at similar kinematics showed a good description of data in analogy to Monte Carlo simulations. In Figs. 4–7, we show the MicroBooNE flux-averaged differential cross sections with respect to the muon momentum and scattering angle, in different bins of the neutrino energy, respectively, and using the same flux as in Fig. 3 [57]. In Fig. 4, which corresponds to the lower Eνbin, the cross section is dominated by the quasielastic contribution which is still very important in Fig. 5. However, we start observing FIG. 4. MicroBooNE CC inclusive flux-averaged differential cross section on 40Ar per target nucleon in bins of the muon scattering angle (labeled in the panels) as a function of the muon momentum for the neutrino energy bin of 0.2–0.705 GeV. The contributions of the different channels are shown before the application of the smearing matrix. The smearing matrix is only applied to the total contribution. Although not shown, the last bin of all plots extends to a muon momentum of 2.5 GeV. Data are from [57]. ANALYSIS OF NOVA AND MICROBOONE CHARGED-CURRENT …PHYS. REV. D 111, 073002 (2025) 073002-7 that the resonance part becomes more relevant as the neutrino energies are larger. In Figs. 4and5, the agreement with data is rather good although some overestimation can be observed at very forward angles. This can be due to the absence of some nuclear-medium effects in the SuSAv2-QE models related to binding energy effects at very low kinematics that can be corrected including additional corrections from RMF models at that particular kinematics. This is not the case in Fig. 6, where a good agreement with the data is obtained at neutrino energies slightly higher than 1 GeV. Nevertheless, in Fig. 7 FIG. 5. MicroBooNE CC inclusive flux-averaged differential cross section on 40Ar per target nucleon in bins of the muon scattering angle (labeled in the panels) as a function of the muon momentum for the neutrino energy bin of 0.7–1.1 GeV. The contributions of the different channels are shown before the application of the smearing matrix. The smearing matrix is only applied to the total contribution. The last bin is as in Fig. 4. Data are from [57]. FIG. 6. MicroBooNE CC inclusive flux-averaged differential cross section on 40Ar per target nucleon in bins of the muon scattering angle (labeled in the panels) as a function of the muon momentum showing the neutrino energy bin of 1.1–1.6 GeV. The contributions of the different channels are shown before the application of the smearing matrix. The smearing matrix is only applied to the total contribution. The last bin is as in Fig. 4. Data are from [57]. J. GONZALEZ-ROSA et al. PHYS. REV. D 111, 073002 (2025) 073002-8 we tend to underestimate the experimental data, which could be ascribed to some lack of strength in our inelastic contributions. As shown in [37], where we compared with the low-energy flux-averaged MINERvA data at similar kinematics (neutrino energy around 3.5 GeV) for a hydrocarbon target, we tend to underpredict the data possibly due to the lack of strength in the resonance channel and/or in other inelastic channels with respect to the results shown by other FIG. 7. MicroBooNE CC inclusive flux-averaged differential cross section on 40Ar per target nucleon in bins of the muon scattering angle (labeled in the panels) as a function of the muon momentum showing the neutrino energy bin of 1.6–4 GeV. The contributions of the different channels are shown before the application of the smearing matrix. The smearing matrix is only applied to the total contribution. The last bin is as in Fig. 4. Data are from [57]. -1.0 -0.75 -0.5 -0.25 0.0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1.0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 -1.0 -0.75 -0.5 -0.25 0.0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1.0 0 0.5 1 1.5 -1.0 -0.75 -0.5 -0.25 0.0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1.0 cos 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 d /dcos /<E > (10 -36 cm 2/GeV/Ar) -1.0 -0.75 -0.5 -0.25 0.0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1.0 cos 0 0.5 1 1.5 QE MEC RES TrueDIS SoftDIS Exp. Data 2=289.5 All Contr. FIG. 8. MicroBooNE CC inclusive flux-averaged differential cross section on 40Ar per target nucleon in bins of the neutrino energy (labeled in the panels) as a function of the muon scattering angle. The contributions of the different channels are shown before the application of the smearing matrix. The smearing matrix is only applied to the total contribution. Data are from [57]. ANALYSIS OF NOVA AND MICROBOONE CHARGED-CURRENT …PHYS. REV. D 111, 073002 (2025) 073002-9