Semi-relativistic description of quasielastic neutrino reactions and superscaling in a continuum shell model

The so-called semirelativistic expansion of the weakly charged current in powers of the initial nucleon momentum is performed to describe charge-changing, quasi elastic neutrino reactions (νμ,μ-) at intermediate energies. The quality of the expansion is tested by comparing it with the relativistic Fermi gas model using several choices of kinematics of interest for ongoing neutrino oscillation experiments. The new current is then implemented in a continuum shell model together with relativistic kinematics to investigate the scaling properties of (e,e') and (νμ,μ-) cross sections.