Current Status for the Inclusive Neutral Current $$\pi ^{0}$$ Production Cross-Section Measurement with the NOvA Near Detector

Abstract

The NuMI Off-axis \(\nu _{e}\) Appearance (NOvA) experiment is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. It uses two functionally identical detectors, the NOvA near detector (ND) at Fermilab and the NOvA far detector (FD) at a distance 810 km in northern Minnesota to measure \(\nu _{e}\) appearance in a narrow-band beam of \(\nu _{\mu }\) peaked at 2 GeV in energy. Neutrino induced Neutral Current (NC) interactions with a \(\pi ^{0}\) in the final state are a significant background in the \(\nu _{e}\) appearance measurement. The \(\pi ^{0}\) decay into two photons can fake the \(\nu _{e}\) appearance signal either due to the merging of two photon showers or one of the two photons escaping the detection. Therefore, a complete understanding of NC interactions with \(\pi ^{0}\) in the final state is very important. To constrain this background, NOvA will perform cross-section measurement of inclusive NC \(\pi ^{0}\) production using data from the NOvA ND. It will also help in reducing the background uncertainties for current and future long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments.