Neutrino initiated cascades at mid and high altitudes in the atmosphere

TL;DR

This paper models and analyzes neutrino-initiated air showers at mid and high altitudes, aiding the detection efforts of upcoming space observatories like JEM-EUSO for ultra high energy cosmic rays.

Contribution

It combines PYTHIA and CONEX to simulate neutrino-induced air showers, focusing on their development at altitudes relevant for space fluorescence detection.

Findings

Detailed longitudinal profile structures of neutrino showers

Identification of mid and high altitude shower characteristics

Implications for space-based neutrino detection

Abstract

High energy neutrinos play a very important role for the understanding of the origin and propagation of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR). They can be produced as a consequence of the hadronic interactions suffered by the cosmic rays in the acceleration regions, as by products of the propagation of the UHECR in the radiation background and as a main product of the decay of super heavy relic particles. A new era of very large exposure space observatories, of which the JEM-EUSO mission is a prime example, is on the horizon which opens the possibility of neutrino detection in the highest energy region of the spectrum. In the present work we use a combination of the PYTHIA interaction code with the CONEX shower simulation package in order to produce fast one-dimensional simulations of neutrino initiated showers in air. We make a detail study of the structure of the corresponding longitudinal profiles, but focus our physical analysis mainly on the development of showers at mid and high altitudes, where they can be an interesting target for space fluorescence observatories.