Speaker
Description
The NuMI Off-Axis $\nu_e$ Appearance (NOvA) Experiment is a long baseline neutrino experiment consisting of two detectors: a Near Detector (ND) at Fermilab in Batavia, IL, and a Far Detector (FD) in Ash River, MN. The ND observes the unoscillated neutrino beam while the FD can observe neutrinos from the beam which may have oscillated. The detectors work in tandem, with the ND providing a control to compare with what is observed in the FD. However, the ND has physics goals independent of the FD, like observing processes which lead to physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). One such process is the existence of a neutrino magnetic moment. At leading order, neutrinos do not interact electromagnetically, but, by considering higher order perturbative effects, it becomes possible for neutrinos to engage in effective coupling with a photon. This effective coupling then allows neutrinos to acquire electromagnetic properties, one of which is the neutrino magnetic moment. Measurement of the neutrino magnetic moment can aid in the process of determining if neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana fermions, as well as provide insights into BSM physics, as the value for the neutrino magnetic moment has a dependence on which theoretical extension to the Standard Model is applied. In this poster, we present the foundation for the NOvA neutrino magnetic moment analysis and predictions for NOvA sensitivity to a neutrino magnetic moment measurement compared to prior direct measurements from other experiments.