Protons in Quasielastic Neutrino Events

The NOvA experiment at Fermilab utilizes beams of neutrinos and antineutrinos to observe neutrino oscillation and probe questions that remain unanswered by standard model physics regarding neutrinos. Important to the measurement of oscillations in NOvA is the correct reconstruction of the incident neutrino interaction. Final state protons are often an important component of this energy reconstruction. Quasielastic neutrino events produce two final state particles, a muon and an proton. In these events, kinematic constraints enable a prediction of the proton momentum from the reconstructed muon momentum. These tagged protons in the neutrino data sample can provide a valuable test bed for studying the detector response. From information recorded by the detectors in the NOvA experiment, the quasielastic energy of the neutrino can be calculated. Using this neutrino energy, reconstructed muon momentum, and the known neutrino beam direction the momentum of the proton can be calculated. I will present my analysis which sought to identify a pure sample of quasielastic events and compare the detector response in data and simulation for the protons in these events.