Tau neutrino search with Cherenkov telescopes

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of Cherenkov telescopes to detect high-energy tau neutrinos by simulating event rates and considering topographic effects, comparing sensitivity with IceCube.

Contribution

It provides a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of tau neutrino detection prospects with Cherenkov telescopes, including topography and spectral dependence.

Findings

Neutrino sensitivity varies with energy spectrum shape.

Topography significantly affects detection rates.

Cherenkov telescopes could complement existing neutrino observatories.

Abstract

Cherenkov telescopes could have the capability of detecting high energy tau neutrinos by searching for very inclined showers. If a tau lepton, produced by a tau neutrino, escapes from the Earth crust, it will decay and initiate an air shower which can be detected by a fluorescence/Cherenkov telescope. Here we present a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of event rates induced by tau neutrinos in the energy range from 1 PeV to 1 EeV. Topographic conditions are taken into account for a set of example locations. As expected, we find a neutrino sensitivity which depends on the shape of the energy spectrum from astrophysical sources. We compare our findings with the sensitivity of the dedicated IceCube neutrino telescope under different conditions. We also find that a difference of several factors can be observed depending on the topographic conditions of the sites sampled.