Measurement of the Cosmic Ray and Neutrino-Induced Muon Flux at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

Collaboration
Feb, 2009
17 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 80 (2009) 012001
e-Print:
Experiments:

Citations per year

2006201120162021202502468
Abstract: (arXiv)
Results are reported on the measurement of the atmospheric neutrino-induced muon flux at a depth of 2 kilometers below the Earth's surface from 1229 days of operation of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). By measuring the flux of through-going muons as a function of zenith angle, the SNO experiment can distinguish between the oscillated and un-oscillated portion of the neutrino flux. A total of 514 muon-like events are measured between 1cosθzenith0.4-1 \le \cos{\theta}_{\rm zenith} \le 0.4 in a total exposure of 2.30\times 10^{14}cm cm^{2}s.Themeasuredfluxnormalizationis s. The measured flux normalization is 1.22 \pm 0.09timestheBartolthreedimensionalfluxprediction.Thisisthefirstmeasurementoftheneutrinoinducedfluxwhereneutrinooscillationsareminimized.Thezenithdistributionisconsistentwithpreviouslymeasuredatmosphericneutrinooscillationparameters.ThecosmicraymuonfluxatSNOwithzenithangle times the Bartol three-dimensional flux prediction. This is the first measurement of the neutrino-induced flux where neutrino oscillations are minimized. The zenith distribution is consistent with previously measured atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters. The cosmic ray muon flux at SNO with zenith angle \cos{\theta}_{\rm zenith} > 0.4ismeasuredtobe is measured to be (3.31 \pm 0.01 {\rm (stat.)} \pm 0.09 {\rm (sys.)}) \times 10^{-10}~\mu/s/cm/s/cm^{2}$.
Note:
  • 17 pages, 11 figures
  • 14.60.Lm
  • 14.60.Pq
  • 96.50.S-
  • muon: flux
  • neutrino: oscillation
  • neutrino: flux
  • muon: cosmic radiation
  • neutrino: atmosphere
  • SNO
  • angular dependence