| The phenomenon of neutrino oscillation is becoming increasingly understood with results from accelerator-based and reactor-based experiments, but unanswered questions remain. The proper ordering of the neutrino mass eigenstates that compose the neutrino flavor eigenstates is not completely known. We have yet to detect CP violation in neutrino mixing, which if present could help explain the asymmetry between matter and anti-matter in the universe. We also have not resolved whether sterile neutrinos, which do not interact in any Standard Model interaction, exist. Accelerator-based experiments appear to be the most promising candidates for resolving these questions; however, the ability of present and future experiments to provide answers is likely to be limited by systematic errors. A significant source of this systematic error comes from limitations in our knowledge of neutrino-nucleus interactions. Errors on cross-sections for such interactions are large, existing data is sometimes contradictory, and knowledge of nuclear effects is incomplete. One type of neutrino interaction of particular interest is charged current quasi-elastic (CCQE) scattering, which yields a final state consisting of a charged lepton and nucleon. This process, which is the dominant interaction near energies of 1 GeV, is of great utility to neutrino oscillation experiments since the incoming neutrino energy and the square of the momentum transferred to the final state nucleon, Q2, can be reconstructed using the final state lepton kinematics. To address the uncertainty in our knowledge of neutrino interactions, many experiments have begun making dedicated measurements. In particular, the MINERνA experiment is studying neutrino-nucleus interactions in the few GeV region. MINERνA is a fine-grained, high precision, high statistics neutrino scattering experiment that will greatly improve our understanding of neutrino cross-sections and nuclear effects that affect the final state particles in neutrino interactions. We present the first cross-section measurement for MINERνA, the differential cross-section dsdQ2 for muon anti-neutrino CCQE scattering on polystyrene scintillator (CH) as well as comparisons to several final state models. |
