A New Concept for High-Elevation Radio Detection of Tau Neutrinos

¹ California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo,CA, 93407,, USA
² Departamento de Física de Partículas & Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxías, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
³ Departamento de Física,Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo Brazil
⁴ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,CA 91109 USA
⁵ Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117 Heidelberg Germany

^★ e-mail: kmulrey@vub.be

Published online: 24 September 2019

Abstract

Cosmic neutrinos are expected to include a significant flux of tau neutrinos due to flavor mixing over astronomical length scales. However, the tau-neutrino content of astrophysical neutrinos is poorly constrained and a significant flux of cosmogenic tau neutrinos awaits discovery. Earth-skimming tau neutrinos undergo charged-current interactions that result in a tau lepton exiting the Earth. The tau lepton decay generates anextensive air shower and geomagnetic radio emission. To target the tau neutrinos, we present a new tau neutrino detector concept that uses phased antenna arrays placed on high elevation mountains. Simulation studies indicate that a modest array size and small number of stations can achieve competitive sensitivity, provided the receivers are at highs enough elevation.