Measurement of the inclusive electron neutrino charged-current cross section in the NOvA near detector
Date
2019
Authors
Judah, Matthew A., author
Buchanan, Norm, advisor
Gelfand, Martin, committee member
Harton, John, committee member
Pallickara, Sangmi, committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
This thesis describes the methods used to extract the inclusive νₑ charged-current cross section in the NOνA near detector using data collected from November 2014 to February 2017, corresponding to an exposure of $8.09 x 10²⁰ protons-on-target of a primarily neutrino beam. The near detector is located at Fermilab, 800 m from the primary target. The neutrino beam peaks near 2 GeV and is able to probe a variety of different neutrino-nucleus interactions through their final-state characteristics. The flux-integrated double-differential cross section is measured with respect to the final-state electron kinematics, as well as the total cross-section as a function of neutrino energy integrated over the same phase space used for the double-differential measurement.