Neutrino events within muon bundles at neutrino telescopes

TL;DR

This paper explores detecting atmospheric neutrino interactions within muon bundles at km$^3$ telescopes, proposing an algorithm to distinguish these events from regular muon bundles, enhancing neutrino detection capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to identify neutrino interactions within muon bundles, improving the detection of atmospheric neutrinos at high energies.

Findings

Proposes an algorithm to separate neutrino-induced events from muon bundles.

Highlights the potential to detect atmospheric neutrinos at energies above 10 TeV.

Suggests increased detector activity correlates with neutrino interactions.

Abstract

The atmospheric neutrino flux includes a component from the prompt decay of charmed hadrons that becomes significant only at $E\ge 10$ TeV. At these energies, however, the diffuse flux of cosmic neutrinos discovered by IceCube seems to be larger than the atmospheric one. Here we study the possibility to detect a neutrino interaction in down-going atmospheric events at km$^3$ telescopes. The neutrino signal will always appear together with a muon bundle that reveals its atmospheric origin and, generically, it implies an increase in the detector activity with the slant depth. We propose a simple algorithm that could separate these events from regular muon bundles.