München 2009 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 92: Neutrino-Astronomie 5
T 92.7: Vortrag
Freitag, 13. März 2009, 15:30–15:45, A214
Vetoing Atmospheric Neutrinos in High Energy Neutrino Telescopes — Stefan Schoenert1, Thomas K. Gaisser2, Elisa Resconi1, and •Olaf Schulz1 — 1Max-Planck Institut f. Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117 Heidelberg — 2Bartol Research Institute and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 USA
The basic strategy for neutrino telescopes up to today has been to suppress the background of atmospheric muons by restricting the field of view to the hemisphere below the detector. The main remaining background is then built by atmospheric neutrinos and is irreducible. The new generation of km-scale neutrino telescopes, such as IceCube or the planned KM3NeT project, offer the new opportunity to use a large part of the detector as an active veto to suppress atmospheric muons, thereby opening the field of view to the above hemisphere. We discuss the possibility to suppress downward atmospheric neutrinos in high energy neutrino telescopes. This can be achieved if the muon, which is produced by the same parent meson decay in the atmosphere, can be vetoed. In principle, atmospheric neutrinos with energies Eν > 10 TeV and zenith angle up to 60∘ can be vetoed with an efficiency of > 99%. Practical realization will depend on the depth of the neutrino telescope, on the muon veto efficiency and on the ability to identify downward moving neutrinos with a good energy estimation.