Speaker: Harry Hausner , Physics PhD Graduate Student
Abstract: NOvA is a two detector experiment designed to observe neutrino oscillations from $\nu\mu$ to $\nu_e$ flavor states. Additionally, the location of the NOvA Near Detector is well situated to additionally observe short baseline oscillations to sterile neutrino states. We expand upon previous NOvA sterile neutrino searches by using a covariance matrix fitting technique. This analysis is the first with NOvA to directly include neutrino interactions in the Near Detector while fitting the data. The NOvA Near Detector's greater statistics to better constrain our Far Detector uncertainties in addition to increasing the range of $\Delta m^2{41}$ to which we are sensitive.