Atmospheric lepton fluxes at ultrahigh energies

TL;DR

This paper investigates the sources and fluxes of atmospheric leptons at ultrahigh energies, revealing eta mesons as the dominant muon source and analyzing dimuon production mechanisms relevant for neutrino telescope backgrounds.

Contribution

It identifies eta mesons as the main source of high-energy atmospheric muons, challenging previous assumptions, and quantifies dimuon production processes using PYTHIA.

Findings

Eta mesons dominate muon flux at energies >10^6 GeV.

The neutrino to muon flux ratio is significantly reduced.

D and B meson decays and Drell-Yan processes produce high-energy dimuons.

Abstract

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 > 10^6 GeV: the weak decay of charm and bottom mesons and the electromagnetic decay of unflavored mesons. Contrary to the standard assumption, we find that eta 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 ~ 10^7 GeV forming an angle above 10^-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.