Neutrinos and their interactions with matter

Abstract

We have presented a review of the properties of neutrinos and their interactions with matter. The different (anti)neutrino processes like the quasielastic scattering, inelastic production of mesons and hyperons, and the deep inelastic scattering from the free nucleons are discussed, and the results for the scattering cross sections are presented. The polarization observables for the leptons and hadrons produced in the final state, in the case of quasielastic scattering, are also studied. The importance of nuclear medium effects in the low, intermediate, and high energy regions, in the above processes along with the processes of the coherent neutrino–nucleus scattering, coherent meson production, and trident production, has been highlighted. In some cases, the results of the cross sections are also given and compared with the available experimental data as well as with the predictions in the different theoretical models. This study would be helpful in understanding the (anti)neutrino interaction cross section with matter in the few GeV energy region relevant to the next generation experiments like DUNE, Hyper-Kamiokande, and other experiments with accelerator and atmospheric neutrinos. We have emphasized the need of better theoretical models for some of these processes for studying the nuclear medium effects in nuclei.