The cross section of neutrino-induced neutral-current coherent ${\pi }^0$ production on a carbon-dominated target is measured in the NOvA near detector. This measurement uses a narrow-band neutrino beam with an average neutrino energy of 2.7 GeV, which is of interest to ongoing and future long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. The measured, flux-averaged cross section is $\sigma =13.8\pm 0.9(\mathrm{stat})\pm 2.3(\mathrm{syst})\times {10}^{-40}{\mathrm{cm}}^2/\text{nucleus}$, consistent with model prediction. This result is the most precise measurement of neutral-current coherent ${\pi }^0$ production in the few-GeV neutrino energy region.

• Received 5 February 2019
• Revised 22 June 2020
• Accepted 23 June 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.102.012004

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Published by the American Physical Society