Limit on the diffuse flux of ultrahigh energy tau neutrinos with the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION (AUTOR 434 DE 474); M. TUEROS

PHYSICAL REVIEW D - PARTICLE AND FILDS

The American Physical Society

Año: 2009 vol. 79 p. 1020011 - 10200115

0556-2821

Data collected at the Pierre Auger Observatory are used to establish an upper limit on the diffuse flux of tau neutrinos in the cosmic radiation. Earth-skimming
 may interact in the Earth’s crust and produce a lepton by means of charged-current interactions. The  lepton may emerge from the Earth and decay in the atmosphere to produce a nearly horizontal shower with a typical signature, a persistent electromagnetic component even at very large atmospheric depths. The search procedure to select events induced by decays against the background of normal showers induced by cosmic rays is described. The method used to compute the exposure for a detector continuously growing with time is detailed. Systematic un certainties in the exposure from the detector, the analysis, and the involved physics are discussed. No neutrino candidates have been found. For neutrinos in the energy range 2
1017 eV