Inclusive quasielastic neutrino and antineutrino scattering off nuclei within the Standard Model and beyond

We derive fully general expressions for the inclusive (anti-)neutrino-induced nuclear quasielastic production of a strange or charmed baryon <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mi>Y</a:mi></a:math>, considering all dimension-six new-physics operators relevant to the semileptonic <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><c:mi>q</c:mi><c:mo stretchy="false">→</c:mo><c:msup><c:mi>q</c:mi><c:mo>′</c:mo></c:msup><c:mo>ℓ</c:mo><c:msub><c:mi>ν</c:mi><c:mo>ℓ</c:mo></c:msub></c:math> transition with both left- and right-handed neutrino fields. We illustrate the formalism by applying it to the <f:math xmlns:f="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><f:msub><f:mi mathvariant="normal">Λ</f:mi><f:mi>c</f:mi></f:msub></f:math> production in neutrino-nucleus scattering. The nuclear response is computed using a state-of-the-art spectral function, based on realistic nuclear many-body wave functions obtained via the coupled-cluster method and a nuclear Hamiltonian derived from chiral effective field theory. We also highlight the role played by the final state interactions between the produced <i:math xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><i:mi>Y</i:mi></i:math> hyperon and the residual nuclear system, which can obscure potential new physics signals in this (anti-)neutrino–nucleus reaction. Our results improve upon previous studies that neglected nuclear corrections and uncertainties—effects we show to be comparable to, or even larger than, those expected from new physics.