A&S Graduate Studies
[PAST EVENT] Anne Elizabeth Norrick: Physics Dissertation Defense
Anne Elizabeth Norrick, Final Oral Examination for the Ph.D., Title: "A Measurement of Nuclear Effects in Deep Inelastic Scattering in Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions."
Abstract: Neutrino-Nucleus Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) events provide a probe into the structure of nucleons within a nucleus that cannot be accessed via charged lepton-nucleus interactions. The MINERvA experiment is stationed in the Neutrinos from the Main Injector (NuMI) beam line at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. With the recent increase in average neutrino energy and the greatly increased intensity of the NuMI beam line, projected sensitivities for DIS cross section ratio analyses using MINERvA's suite of nuclear targets (C, CH, Fe and Pb) are greatly increased. An analysis of the MINERvA DIS data on carbon, iron, lead, and plastic has been conducted for muon neutrino events with a muon angle less than 17 degrees. Results are presented as a differential cross section with respect to neutrino energy and Bjorken-x.
Bio: Anne Norrick was born in St. Paul, MN, and attended St. Anthony Village High School, where she first became interested in science. She attended Barnard College, graduating in 2010 before spending a year in the New Mexico mountains doing research at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In the fall of 2011, she started at William and Mary, and began working with Professor Jeffrey Nelson on the MINERvA experiment a year later.