Strange-quark contribution to the ratio of neutral- to charged-current cross sections in neutrino-nucleus scattering

A formalism based on a relativistic plane wave impulse approximation is developed to investigate the strange-quark content ($g_{A}^{s}$) of the axial-vector form factor of the nucleon via neutrino-nucleus scattering. Nuclear structure effects are incorporated via an accurately calibrated relativistic mean-field model. The ratio of neutral- to charged-current cross sections is used to examine the sensitivity of this observable to $g_{A}^{s}$. For values of the incident neutrino energy in the range proposed by the FINeSSE collaboration and by adopting a value of $g_{A}^{s}=-0.19$, a 30% enhancement in the ratio is observed relative to the $g_{A}^{s}=0$ result.