Search for ultrahigh energy neutrinos in highly inclined events at the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to neutrinos of all flavors above 0.1 EeV. These interact through charged and neutral currents in the atmosphere giving rise to extensive air showers. When interacting deeply in the atmosphere at nearly horizontal incidence, neutrinos...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Arganda, E., Arqueros Martínez, Fernando, Blanco Ramos, Francisco, García Pinto, Diego, Ortiz Ramis, Montserrat, Rosado Vélez, Jaime, Vázquez Peñas, José Ramón
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2011
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/45087
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/45087
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:539.1
Extensive air showers
Cosmic rays
Upper limit
Surface detector
Photon fraction
Fermi lat
Flux
Performance
Telescope
Origin.
Física nuclear
2207 Física Atómica y Nuclear
Descripción
Sumario:The Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to neutrinos of all flavors above 0.1 EeV. These interact through charged and neutral currents in the atmosphere giving rise to extensive air showers. When interacting deeply in the atmosphere at nearly horizontal incidence, neutrinos can be distinguished from regular hadronic cosmic rays by the broad time structure of their shower signals in the water-Cherenkov detectors. In this paper we present for the first time an analysis based on down-going neutrinos. We describe the search procedure, the possible sources of background, the method to compute the exposure and the associated systematic uncertainties. No candidate neutrinos have been found in data collected from 1 January 2004 to 31 May 2010. Assuming an E-2 differential energy spectrum the limit on the single-flavor neutrino is E(2)dN/dE < 1.74 x 10(-7)GeVcm(-2)s(-1)sr(-1) at 90% C.L. in the energy range 1 x 10(17) eV < E < 1 x 10(20)eV.