Sensitivity of neutrino oscillations to the Earth's interior properties

TL;DR

This paper explores how atmospheric neutrino oscillations can serve as a novel probe to infer Earth's internal structure, potentially resolving ambiguities faced by traditional seismic methods.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of using neutrino oscillation data to directly probe Earth's interior properties, offering a complementary approach to geophysical techniques.

Findings

Neutrino oscillations depend on Earth's electron density.

Neutrino measurements can distinguish between different internal compositions.

Potential to improve understanding of Earth's internal structure.

Abstract

Understanding the Earth s internal structure remains a major challenge, as traditional geophysical methods face ambiguities in linking seismic observations to temperature, composition, or mass density variations. Atmospheric neutrinos offer a complementary probe: while traversing the Earth, they undergo flavor oscillations that depend on the local electron density, which reflects both mass density and composition.