Measurement of electron neutrino quasielastic and quasielastic-like scattering on hydrocarbon at $⟨E_{\nu }⟩$ = 3.6 GeV

The first direct measurement of electron-neutrino quasielastic and quasielastic-like scattering on hydrocarbon in the few-GeV region of incident neutrino energy has been carried out using the MINERvA detector in the NuMI beam at Fermilab. The flux-integrated differential cross sections in electron production angle, electron energy and $Q^2$ are presented. The ratio of the quasielastic, flux-integrated differential cross section in $Q^2$ for ${\nu }_e$ with that of similarly-selected ${\nu }_{\mu }$-induced events from the same exposure is used to probe assumptions that underpin conventional treatments of charged-current ${\nu }_e$ interactions used by long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. The data are found to be consistent with lepton universality and are well-described by the predictions of the neutrino event generator GENIE.