Status of the Neutrino-Induced Neutral Current Neutral Pion Production Cross Section Measurement from NOvA

NOvA (NuMI Off-axis Electron-Neutrino Appearance Experiment) is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment which uses two functionally identical detectors, a near detector at Fermilab and a far detector located 810 km away in northern Minnesota, to measure electron-neutrino appearance in a narrow-band beam of muon-neutrinos peaked at 2 GeV in energy. Neutrino induced Neutral Current interactions which produce a neutral pion in the final state present a significant background in electron-neutrino appearance measurements at NOvA’s beam energies as the two neutral pion decay photons may be misidentified as a single electro-magnetic shower. In order to constrain this background, NOvA will perform cross section measurements of inclusive neutral current neutral pion production using data from the near detector. The status of this measurement including event identification techniques and performance, pion kinematic resolutions and expected uncertainties will be presented.