Alec Aivazis edited numi neutrino.tex  almost 10 years ago

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NO$\nu$A features two detectors in order to reduce uncertainties in neutrino flux, cross section, and event selection efficiencies \cite{Kopp_2012}. The Near Detector is in a cavern close to the existing MINOS Near Detector Hall at Fermilab and is made up of a 206 layers of a lattice made up of highly reflective PVC filled with liquid scintillator. As the neutrino passes through the liquid, it decays and produces a flash of flash. This flash of light is collected and transmitted to the end of the call by a specially designed fiber optic cable. The far detector uses similar technology but is considerly bigger, with 928 layers of PVC 15.6m wide. See figure \ref{fig:detectprs} for size comparison. The cells that make up these layers are designed to make it easier to detect $\pi^0$ decays by using the gap between the position where the nuetrino interacted with the liquid and the photon was recorded.  The Far Detector is located 14 mrad off of the NuMI beam axis, exposing the measurements to a relatively narrow band of neutrino flux centered around 2 GeV, the maximum probability for a neutrino to oscillate \footnote{See sections \ref{sect:flux} and \ref{sect:osc-theory} for more information}. This narrow band gives a much higher certainty when performing measurements as previously discussed.