Search for: All records

Abstract With the advance of particle accelerator and detector technologies, the neutrino physics landscape is rapidly expanding. As neutrino oscillation experiments enter the intensity and precision frontiers, neutrino–nucleus interaction measurements are providing crucial input. MINERvA is an experiment at Fermilab dedicated to the study of neutrino–nucleus interactions in the regime of incident neutrino energies from one to few GeV. The experiment recorded neutrino and antineutrino scattering data with the NuMI beamline from 2009 to 2019 using the Low-Energy and Medium-Energy beams that peak at 3GeV and 6GeV, respectively. This article reviews the broad spectrum of interesting nuclear and particle physics that MINERvA investigations have illuminated. The newfound, detailed knowledge of neutrino interactions with nuclear targets thereby obtained is proving essential to continued progress in the neutrino physics sector. 

Elastic neutrino scattering on electrons is a precisely known purely leptonic process that provides a standard candle for measuring neutrino flux in conventional neutrino beams. Using a total sample of 810 neutrino-electron scatters after background subtraction, the measurement reduces the normalization uncertainty on the νμ NuMI beam flux between 2 and 20 GeV from 7.6 to 3.9%. This is the most precise measurement of neutrino-electron scattering to date, will reduce uncertainties on MINERνA’s absolute cross section measurements, and demonstrates a technique that can be used in future neutrino beams such as long baseline neutrino facility. 

MINERvA presents a new analysis of neutrino induced quasielastic-like interactions in a hydrocarbon tracking target. We report a double-differential cross section using the muon transverse and longitudinal momentum. In addition, differential cross sections as a function of the square of the four-momentum transferred and the neutrino energy are calculated using a quasielastic hypothesis. Finally, an analysis of energy deposited near the interaction vertex is presented. These results are compared to modified genie predictions as well as a NuWro prediction. All results use a data set produced by 3.34×10^20 protons on target creating a neutrino beam with a peak energy of approximately 3.5 GeV.