Atmospheric leptons, the search for a prompt component

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current status of searching for prompt atmospheric neutrinos and muons, which are produced by charmed hadrons and could dominate the high-energy neutrino flux, impacting astrophysical neutrino detection.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of the methods and results in detecting prompt atmospheric leptons, highlighting the importance of these signals in neutrino astronomy.

Findings

Prompt neutrinos have a harder spectrum than conventional ones.

Current limits suggest atmospheric neutrinos dominate up to 100 TeV.

Understanding prompt leptons is crucial for astrophysical neutrino searches.

Abstract

The flux of high-energy (>GeV) neutrinos consists primarily of those produced by cosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere. The contribution from extraterrestrial sources is still unknown. Current limits suggest that the observed spectrum is dominated by atmospheric neutrinos up to at least 100 TeV. The contribution of charmed hadrons to the flux of atmospheric neutrinos is important in the context of the search for astrophysical neutrinos because the spectrum of such "prompt" neutrinos is harder than that of "conventional" neutrinos from decay of pions and kaons. The prompt component therefore becomes increasingly important as energy increases. This paper reviews the status of the search for prompt muons and neutrinos with emphasis on the complementary aspects of muons, electron neutrinos and muon neutrinos.