Atmospheric Neutrino Detection Efficiency Estimation in the NOvA Experiment

Abstract

The NOvA experiment is designed to study oscillations in an accelerator neutrino beam. Due to the large size and high segmentation of the detectors, as well as a flexible system of program triggers and data acquisition, atmospheric neutrinos can be detected and studied in the NOvA. This paper presents a developed methodology for atmospheric neutrino registration in the far detector: it outlines the procedure for selecting and reconstructing triggers, calculates their efficiency for background and signal events, and finally, provides the expected energy spectrum of atmospheric neutrinos.