Atmospheric lepton fluxes at ultrahigh energies

Journal Article · Tue Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2009/09/008· OSTI ID:22273253

Illana, José Ignacio; Masip, Manuel ^[1]; Meloni, Davide ^[2]

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1. CAFPE and Depto. de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada (Spain)
2. INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tre, 00146 Rome (Italy)

In order to estimate the possibility to observe exotic physics in a neutrino telescope, it is essential to first understand the flux of atmospheric neutrinos, muons and dimuons. We study the production of these leptons by high-energy cosmic rays. We identify three main sources of muons of energy E ≥ 10{sup 6} GeV: the weak decay of charm and bottom mesons and the electromagnetic decay of unflavored mesons. Contrary to the standard assumption, we find that η mesons, not the prompt decay of charm hadrons, are the dominant source of atmospheric muons at these energies. We show that, as a consequence, the ratio between the neutrino and muon fluxes is significantly reduced. For dimuons, which may be a background for long-lived staus produced near a neutrino telescope, we find that pairs of E ≈ 10{sup 7} GeV forming an angle above 10{sup −6} rad are produced through D (80%) or B (10%) meson decay and through Drell-Yan proceses (10%). The frequency of all these processes has been evaluated using the jet code PYTHIA.

• OSTI ID: 22273253
• Journal Information: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Journal Issue: 09 Vol. 2009; ISSN 1475-7516
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS
BEAUTY MESONS
CHARMED MESONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COSMIC MUONS
DRELL MODEL
ELECTROMAGNETIC PARTICLE DECAY
GEV RANGE
JET MODEL
NEUTRINOS
P CODES
PARTICLE IDENTIFICATION
PARTICLE PRODUCTION
SPARTICLES
TELESCOPE COUNTERS