Design, calibration, and performance of the MINERvA detector

The MINERvA(6) experiment is designed to perform precision studies of neutrino-nucleus scattering using nu(mu) and (nu) over bar (mu) neutrinos incident at 1-20 GeV in the NuMI beam at Fermilab. This article presents a detailed description of the MINERvA detector and describes the ex situ and in situ techniques employed to characterize the detector and monitor its performance. The detector is composed of a finely segmented scintillator-based inner tracking region surrounded by electromagnetic and hadronic sampling calorimetry. The upstream portion of the detector includes planes of graphite, iron and lead interleaved between tracking planes to facilitate the study of nuclear effects in neutrino interactions. Observations concerning the detector response over sustained periods of running are reported. The detector design and methods of operation have relevance to future neutrino experiments in which segmented scintillator tracking is utilized. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

Measurement of Muon Neutrino Quasielastic Scattering on a Hydrocarbon Target at E-v similar to 3.5 GeV

We report a study of nu(mu) charged-current quasielastic events in the segmented scintillator inner tracker of the MINERvA experiment running in the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermilab. The events were selected by requiring a mu(-) and low calorimetric recoil energy separated from the interaction vertex. We measure the flux-averaged differential cross section, d sigma/dQ(2), and study the low energy particle content of the final state. Deviations are found between the measured d sigma/dQ(2) and the expectations of a model of independent nucleons in a relativistic Fermi gas. We also observe an excess of energy near the vertex consistent with multiple protons in the final state

Design, calibration, and performance of the MINERvA detector

The MINERvA(6) experiment is designed to perform precision studies of neutrino-nucleus scattering using nu(mu) and (nu) over bar (mu) neutrinos incident at 1-20 GeV in the NuMI beam at Fermilab. This article presents a detailed description of the MINERvA detector and describes the ex situ and in situ techniques employed to characterize the detector and monitor its performance. The detector is composed of a finely segmented scintillator-based inner tracking region surrounded by electromagnetic and hadronic sampling calorimetry. The upstream portion of the detector includes planes of graphite, iron and lead interleaved between tracking planes to facilitate the study of nuclear effects in neutrino interactions. Observations concerning the detector response over sustained periods of running are reported. The detector design and methods of operation have relevance to future neutrino experiments in which segmented scintillator tracking is utilized. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

Measurement of Muon antineutrino quasielastic scattering on a hydrocarbon target at Eν∼3.5 GeV

We have isolated ν̄μ charged-current quasielastic (QE) interactions occurring in the segmented scintillator tracking region of the MINERvA detector running in the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermilab. We measure the flux-averaged differential cross section, dσ/dQ2, and compare to several theoretical models of QE scattering. Good agreement is obtained with a model where the nucleon axial mass, MA, is set to 0.99 GeV/c2 but the nucleon vector form factors are modified to account for the observed enhancement, relative to the free nucleon case, of the cross section for the exchange of transversely polarized photons in electron-nucleus scattering. Our data at higher Q2 favor this interpretation over an alternative in which the axial mass is increased. © 2013 American Physical Society

Measurement of muon neutrino quasielastic scattering on a hydrocarbon target at Eν∼3.5 GeV

We report a study of νμ charged-current quasielastic events in the segmented scintillator inner tracker of the MINERvA experiment running in the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermilab. The events were selected by requiring a μ- and low calorimetric recoil energy separated from the interaction vertex. We measure the flux-averaged differential cross section, dσ/dQ2, and study the low energy particle content of the final state. Deviations are found between the measured dσ/dQ2 and the expectations of a model of independent nucleons in a relativistic Fermi gas. We also observe an excess of energy near the vertex consistent with multiple protons in the final state. © 2013 American Physical Society