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

Abstract

NOvA (NuMI Off-axis {\nu}e Appearance) experiment is designed to study long-baseline neutrino oscillations using two detectors, the Near Detector (ND) at Fermilab and the Far Detector (FD) at a distance 810 km in Northern Minnesota. NOvA looks for the $\nu_{e}$ appearance at the FD using a narrow band $\nu_\mu$ beam peaked at 2 GeV in energy. Neutral Current (NC) interactions with a $\pi^{0}$ in the final state represent the main background in the $\nu_{e}$ appearance measurement. The $\pi^{0}$ decay into two photons can fake the $\nu_{e}$ appearance signal in two ways either two photon showers merge together or one of the two photons may escape the detection. Therefore, a complete understanding of $\nu_{\mu}$ induced NC interactions with $\pi^{0}$ in the final state is very important. It will also help in reducing the background uncertainties for current and future long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. We present here the current status of the analysis related to the inclusive NC $\pi^{0}$ production cross section measurement with the NOvA ND.