The NOvA Test Beam Program

NOvA is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment designed to precisely measure the neutrino mixing angles and to discover the neutrino mass hierarchy and probe leptonic CP violation by measuring the oscillation of muon (anti)neutrinos to electron (anti)neutrinos. A crucial measurable in the NOvA detectors is the neutrino energy E_ν, which is the sum of leptonic energy (E_Lep) and hadronic energy (E_Had). The systematic precision of E_v is dominated by the uncertainty in E_had where NOvA has been observing a discrepancy between data and Monte Carlo simulation. Although the current NOvA oscillation measurements are dominated by statistics, it is essential to assess and mitigate the causes of systematic errors. Among the leading systematics on the latest measurement of the neutrino oscillation parameters by NOνA are calibration, detector response, and the muon and hadronic energy scales. This talk will describe how NOνA is deploying a scaled-down version of its detectors at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility (FTBF). The detector will be exposed to a new tertiary beam of pions, protons, muons, and electrons with known energies to address these issues and to help reduce systematic errors while providing a comprehensive cross-check of the NOvA calibration chain.