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{sub A}{sup 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{sub A}{sup s}. For values of the incident neutrino energy in the range proposed by the FINeSSE Collaboration and by adopting a value of g{sub A}{sup s}=-0.19, a 30% enhancement in the ratio is observed relative to the g{sub A}{sup s}=0 result.