An upper limit on the electron-neutrino flux from the HiRes detector

Mar, 2008
13 pages
Published in:
  • Astrophys.J. 684 (2008) 790-793
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Abstract: (arXiv)
Air-fluorescence detectors such as the High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) detector are very sensitive to upward-going, Earth-skimming ultrahigh energy electron-neutrino-induced showers. This is due to the relatively large interaction cross sections of these high-energy neutrinos and to the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM) effect. The LPM effect causes a significant decrease in the cross sections for bremsstrahlung and pair production, allowing charged-current electron-neutrino-induced showers occurring deep in the Earth's crust to be detectable as they exit the Earth into the atmosphere. A search for upward-going neutrino-induced showers in the HiRes-II monocular dataset has yielded a null result. From an LPM calculation of the energy spectrum of charged particles as a function of primary energy and depth for electron-induced showers in rock, we calculate the shape of the resulting profile of these showers in air. We describe a full detector Monte Carlo simulation to determine the detector response to upward-going electron-neutrino-induced cascades and present an upper limit on the flux of electron-neutrinos.
  • cosmic rays
  • ultra high energy neutrinos
  • LPM effect
  • neutrino: cosmic radiation
  • neutrino/e: flux
  • upper limit
  • neutrino nucleon: interaction
  • charged current
  • neutrino/e: energy spectrum
  • showers: electromagnetic