The High W Challenge: Robust Neutrino Energy Estimators for LArTPCs

Abstract: Accurate determination of the neutrino energy is central to precision oscillation measurements. In this work, we introduce the W$^2$-based estimator, a new neutrino energy estimator based on the measurement of the final-state hadronic invatiant mass. This estimator is particularly designed to be employed in liquid-argon time-projection chambers exposed to broadband beams that span the challenging transition region between shallow inelastic scattering and deep inelastic scattering. The performance of the W$^2$-based estimator is compared against four other commonly used estimators. The impact of the estimator choice is evaluated by performing measurements of $δ{CP}$ and $Δm^2{23}$ in a toy long-baseline oscillation analysis. We find that the W$^2$-based estimator shows the smallest bias as a funciton of true neutrino energy and it is particularly stable against the mismodelling of lepton scattering angle, missing energy, hadronic invariant mass and final state interactions. Such an inclusive channel complements well the strength of more exclusive methods that optimizes the energy resolution. By providing a detailed analysis of strengths, weaknesses and domain of applicability of each estimator, this work informs the combined used of energy estimators in any future LArTPC-based oscillation analysis.