Neutral current neutrino–⁹⁸Mo reaction cross sections at low and intermediate energies

Inelastic neutrino–nucleus reaction cross sections at low and intermediate neutrino energies are studied. The required many-body nuclear wavefunctions are calculated in the context of a quasi-particle random phase approximation that uses realistic two-body forces. The results presented here refer to the differential, integrated and total cross sections of the neutral-current-induced reaction of νe with the 98Mo nucleus. Exploiting the obtained results, we investigate the response of this isotope as a supernova neutrino detector, assuming a two-parameter Fermi–Dirac distribution for the supernova neutrino energy spectra.