Estimate of the Energy of Upgoing Muons with Multiple Coulomb Scattering

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to estimate the energy of upgoing muons in underground detectors using Multiple Coulomb Scattering, providing insights into atmospheric neutrino oscillations and their parameters.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel application of Multiple Coulomb Scattering to estimate muon energies, enhancing analysis of neutrino oscillation effects in underground detectors.

Findings

Event distribution aligns with neutrino oscillation hypothesis

Estimated muon energies support oscillation parameters with Δm² around 10^{-3} eV²

Data consistent with maximum mixing scenario

Abstract

Upward throughgoing muons in underground detectors are induced by atmospheric $\nu_\mu$ with energies in the $1-10^4 GeV$ range. The oscillations of atmospheric muon neutrinos should affect mainly those with energy smaller than $E_\nu \sim 50 GeV$, or $E_\mu \le 10 GeV$ . We analyzed the MACRO upward throughgoing muons data set, using the Multiple Coulomb Scattering to estimate the energy $E_\mu$ of muons crossing the detector. We analyzed the event distribution for six event subsamples with different values of $<\ell_\nu / E_\nu>$. The event distribution is in agreement with the hypothesis of neutrino oscillations with $\Delta m^2$ few times $10^{-3} eV^2$ and maximum mixing.