Abstract:

There is an ambitious program being planned and executed to better understand neutrino masses and mixing. An important component of that program depends on neutrinos of a few GeV scattering off complex nuclei like carbon, oxygen, or argon. Neutrino interactions at these energies are a combination of processes: neutrinos can scatter off entire nuclei, off protons and neutrons in the nucleus, or even off quarks in the nucleus. Although the neutrino interaction theory is improving in part thanks to data from electron scattering, the state of the art theory is not ready for the state of the art oscillation experiments. New measurements are needed to get to the best models for oscillation experiments. The MINERvA experiment at Fermilab was designed to make these measurements by designing a detector with excellent event reconstruction with several different nuclear targets. A selection of recent results will be presented as well as a preview of future results.