The MINERvA experiment is a dedicated neutrino interaction experiment set in the NuMI beamline at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The purpose of the experiment is to measure neutrino interactions off a variety of nuclear targets to probe nuclear effects and inform modeling of neutrino interactions. The experiment measures interactions over a wide range of Q2 and W including interactions in the quasi-elastic, resonant, and shallow to deep inelastic scattering regions. The experiment has run with two beam energies peaked at ~3 and 6 GeV in both neutrino and anti-neutrino enhanced modes.
In this seminar, I will describe the current state of neutrino oscillation physics and how MINERvA data will be used in future experiments. I will specifically describe the extensive tuning exercise MINERvA has done to describe interactions in the quasi-elastic into the resonant pion regions of kinematic phase space. I will also discuss the lessons learned and a description of the next generation measurements to prepare for the DUNE experiment.