Disentangling neutrino-nucleon cross section and high energy neutrino flux with a km{sup 3} neutrino telescope
- Universita 'Federico II' Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche and INFN Sezione di Napoli, Naples (Italy)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, Ny Munkegade, 8000 Aarhus (Denmark)
- AHEP Group, Institut de Fisica Corpuscular, CSIC/Universitat de Valencia, Apartado 22085, 46071 Valencia (Spain)
- Center for Particle Astrophysics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510-0500 (United States)
The energy-zenith angular event distribution in a neutrino telescope provides a unique tool to determine at the same time the neutrino-nucleon cross section at extreme kinematical regions, and the high-energy neutrino flux. By using a simple parametrization for fluxes and cross sections, we present a sensitivity analysis for the case of a km{sup 3} neutrino telescope. In particular, we consider the specific case of an underwater Mediterranean telescope placed at the NEMO site, although most of our results also apply to an under-ice detector such as IceCube. We determine the sensitivity to departures from standard values of the cross sections above 1 PeV which can be probed independently from an a priori knowledge of the normalization and energy dependence of the flux. We also stress that the capability to tag downgoing neutrino showers in the PeV range against the cosmic-ray induced background of penetrating muons appears to be a crucial requirement to derive meaningful constraints on the cross section.
- OSTI ID:
- 21039183
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 77, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.045019; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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