CP-violation or Nuclear Excitation: Reviewing the Role of Neutrino Interaction Model Uncertainties on Accelerator-Based Neutrino Oscillation Measurements

Abstract

Accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments have the potential to revolutionise our understanding of fundamental physics, offering an opportunity to characterise charge-parity violation in the lepton sector; to determine the neutrino mass ordering; and to explore the possibility of physics beyond three-flavour neutrino mixing. However, as more data is collected, the current and next-generation of experiments will require increasingly precise control over the systematic uncertainties within their analyses. It is well known that some of the most challenging uncertainties to overcome stem from our uncertain modelling of neutrino--nucleus interactions, which also affect the event rates used to infer the oscillation probability. The sources of these uncertainties are often related to subtle details of the pertinent nuclear physics which are extremely difficult to control with sufficient precision. Confronting such uncertainties requires both state-of-the-art theoretical modelling and precise measurements of neutrino interaction event rates at experiment's near detectors, before oscillations occur. In this work, we review the role of neutrino interaction systematic uncertainties in current and future measurements of neutrino oscillation as well as the experimental and theoretical prospects for reducing them to an acceptable level for the next generation of experiments.