NEUTRAUGER · Study of high-energy cosmic neutrinos through horizontal air showers with the Pierre Auger Observatory: from detector signals to cosmic-ray phenomenology

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Project objective

High-energy neutrinos of cosmic origin are very important messengers to understand the nature and behaviour of the most energetic sources in the universe. It is believed that such environments produce the enigmatic ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), with energies beyond 10-20 eV. The Pierre Auger Observatory (AUGER), a state-of-the-art hybrid detector under development in Argentina with significant European contribution, allows the detection of both neutrinos and UHECRs with energies above 10-17-10-18 eV with unprecedented sensitivity. To make the most of this multi-messenger instrument and efficiently constrain the relevant high-energy astrophysical models, it is required to study in detail the detector's response to (nearly) horizontal air showers (HAS), which allow an unambiguous identification of neutrino-induced showers and could promote AUGER to the first neutrino detector at those highest energies. This will be made possible thanks to direct experiments with inclined muons crossing the replica of an AUGER detector available at IPNO, checked against offline detector simulations. The derivation of the primary neutrino flux requires a detailed study of the AUGER sensitivity to HAS, which will also result in a significant extension of the effective AUGER field of view, and thus a larger acceptance and sky coverage. The raw data will be interpreted in the light of up-to-date astrophysical and cosmological models, taking advantage of the applicants' expertise in neutrino phenomenology and particle physics beyond the Standard Model, and compared to available information provided by other neutrino detectors around the world. Hypothesis on the production and propagation mechanisms of those high-energy neutrinos will be tested and related to UHECR phenomenology, hopefully answering some of the questions raised by cosmic particles at the very end of the energy spectrum.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• INSTITUT NATIONAL DE PHYSIQUE NUCLEAIRE ET DE PHYSIQUE DES PARTICULES (IN2P3) - CENTRE NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE (CNRS) · PARISCoordinatorCity levelFrance

Links

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