First Neutrino Interactions in the MINOS Near Detector

The MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation search) experiment will use the Main Injector neutrino beam at Fermilab to conduct high-precision oscillation measurements relevant to atmospheric neutrino oscillations. The Near Detector, close to the neutrino source, and the Far Detector, at a distance of 735km, sample the beam to measure the flux and energy of the neutrinos. This paper gives an overview of the physics goals of the MINOS experiment, the neutrino beam, and the Near Detector and shows some preliminary distributions from the Near Detector with first beam data.