Search for Sterile Neutrinos at NOvA

In many experimental searches, Neutrino Oscillation has been one of the most promising sources of physics beyond the standard model. Various short and long baseline experiments have been developed using the most advanced detector technologies to detect this elusive particle. NOvA is one such experiment designed with the initial aim of looking at the possibility of the oscillation of a muon neutrino to an electron neutrino. In addition to the study of standard three-flavor neutrino oscillation, the NOvA experimental facility allows one to study physics beyond the standard model, such as the search for the sterile neutrino. This report presents additional selection criteria adopted for the Sterile Neutrino search analysis results in the NOvA experiment at Fermilab, US. We analyze the Monte Carlo (MC) simulated events using an exposure of 12.5 \(\times \) 10 \(^{20}\) protons-on-target from the NuMI beam. We primarily focus on the neutral current events that are strong candidates for the sterile neutrino search. The NOvA far detector is located on the surface and continuously exposed to the cosmic ray particles, a dominant background for the analysis. The strategy adopted for reducing the cosmic background and the preliminary results from the analysis are presented.