DOE OSTI2024
The main advantage of the MINERvA detector is that it uses differently sized nuclear targets, in the same neutrino beam, allowing for a direct study of nuclear medium effects, with reduced flux and detector uncertainties. This thesis presents the first high statistics charged current antineutrino-nucleus inclusive two-dimensional cross section measurements using an antineutrino beam with $\langle E_{\bar\nu}\rangle\sim$ 6 GeV, on iron, lead, carbon and hydrocarbon targets, as a function of bjorken $x$ and four-momentum transfer squared $Q^2$, invariant mass $W$ and $Q^2$ and muon longitudinal and transverse momenta, $p_t$ and $p_z$. These nuclei of different sizes were utilized to measure the nuclear dependence of the cross section. The antineutrino interactions that were utilized for the analysis presented in this thesis, were having an antimuon in the final state with energy 2-20GeV and with an antimuon scattering angle less than $17^o$. This analysis represents one of the largest antineutrino datasets analyzed to date in the energy region of $\langle E_{\bar\nu} \rangle \sim$ 6 GeV. This direct evidence for the nuclear medium effects, can help benchmarking models, which can be used by future neutrino experiments like DUNE, by extrapolating these results to Argon target.