A study of quasi-elastic muon neutrino and antineutrino scattering in the NOMAD experiment

We have studied the muon neutrino and antineutrino quasi-elastic (QEL) scattering reactions using a set of experimental data collected by the NOMAD Collaboration. We have performed measurements of the cross-section of these processes on a nuclear target (mainly carbon).The axial mass parameter M was extracted from the measured quasi-elastic neutrino cross section. The corresponding result is M =1.05±0.02(stat)±0.06(syst) GeV. Our measured M is found to be in good agreement with the world average value obtained in previous deuterium filled bubble chamber experiments. The NOMAD measurement of M is lower than those recently published by K2K and MiniBooNE Collaborations. However, within the large errors quoted by these experiments on M, these results are compatible with the more precise NOMAD value.