Determination of the atmospheric neutrino flux and searches for new physics with AMANDA-II

Journal Article · Fri May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.79.102005· OSTI ID:21296296

Abbasi, R; Andeen, K; Baker, M; Berghaus, P; Boersma, D J; Braun, J; Chirkin, D; Desiati, P; Diaz-Velez, J C; Dumm, J P; Eisch, J; Finley, C; Ganugapati, R; Gladstone, L; Grullon, S; Halzen, F; Hanson, K; Hill, G C; Hoshina, K; Jacobsen, J ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 (United States)

The AMANDA-II detector, operating since 2000 in the deep ice at the geographic South Pole, has accumulated a large sample of atmospheric muon neutrinos in the 100 GeV to 10 TeV energy range. The zenith angle and energy distribution of these events can be used to search for various phenomenological signatures of quantum gravity in the neutrino sector, such as violation of Lorentz invariance or quantum decoherence. Analyzing a set of 5511 candidate neutrino events collected during 1387 days of livetime from 2000 to 2006, we find no evidence for such effects and set upper limits on violation of Lorentz invariance and quantum decoherence parameters using a maximum likelihood method. Given the absence of evidence for new flavor-changing physics, we use the same methodology to determine the conventional atmospheric muon neutrino flux above 100 GeV.

• OSTI ID: 21296296
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 79, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.79.102005; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
ANTARCTICA
ENERGY SPECTRA
FLAVOR MODEL
GEV RANGE 100-1000
ICE
LORENTZ INVARIANCE
MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD FIT
MUON NEUTRINOS
QUANTUM DECOHERENCE
QUANTUM GRAVITY
TEV RANGE 01-10