Constraining Beam Backgrounds and Analyzing the Detector Response in a Test Beam With the Nova Experiment

NOvA is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment with two functionallyidentical detectors with the Near Detector at Fermilab, Illinois, and the Far Detector at Ash River, Minnesota. NOvA measures the rate of muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance using muon neutrinos generated by the NuMI beam from the Accelerator Division(AD), thus NOvA measures neutrino oscillation parameters in the Pontecorvo-Maki- Nakagawa-Sakata matrix. The main experimental goal of NOvA is to determine the mass hierarchy, probe Charge-Parity violation and measure sin2 θ23 precisely. In this dissertation, the experimental setup, the latest analysis methods used in NOvA, and its results from analyzing 6 Years of NuMI data are presented and discussed. Possible improvement in the analysis by decomposing the Near Detector simulation into its constituents (in antineutrino beam mode) and constraining the beam backgrounds is examined. The effect of this analysis method on our measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters is discussed. NOvA also has a third detector that uses Test Beam from AD and is functionally identical to the Near and the Far Detector. The biggest uncertainties regarding the measurement of NOvA oscillation parameters originate from a lack of understanding of our detectors. The Test Beam detector is built to understand the detector response and the detector calibration better, using known particles like proton, electron, pion, and muon. In this thesis, an analysis to study the detector response using protons from the Test Beam data and the Test Beam simulation is presented and discussed