Concept of Coherence in Neutrino and Antineutrino Scattering off Nuclei

The concept of coherence in the scattering of neutrinos and antineutrinos off nuclei is discussed. Motivated by the results of the COHERENT experiment, a new approach to coherence in these processes is proposed, which allows a unified description of the elastic (coherent) and inelastic (incoherent) contributions to the total cross section for neutrino and antineutrino scattering off nuclei at energies below 100 MeV. Experiments and physical problems for coherent scattering of (anti)neutrinos off nuclei are briefly discussed. The extended appendix covers the main points and conclusions of the proposed approach in pedagogical detail.