Search for ultrahigh energy neutrinos in highly inclined events at the Pierre Auger Observatory

0371878 - FZÚ 2013 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Abreu, P. - Aglietta, M. - Ahlers, M. - Boháčová, Martina - Chudoba, Jiří - Ebr, Jan - Mandát, Dušan - Nečesal, Petr - Nožka, Libor - Nyklíček, Michal - Palatka, Miroslav - Pech, Miroslav - Prouza, Michael - Řídký, Jan - Schovancová, Jaroslava - Schovánek, Petr - Šmída, Radomír - Trávníček, Petr - Vícha, Jakub … Total 502 authors
Search for ultrahigh energy neutrinos in highly inclined events at the Pierre Auger Observatory.
Physical Review D: Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology. Roč. 84, č. 12 (2011), "122005-1"-"122005-16". ISSN 1550-7998
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT LC527; GA MŠMT(CZ) 1M06002; GA MŠMT(CZ) MEB111003; GA AV ČR KJB100100904; GA MŠMT(CZ) LA08016
Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10100502; CEZ:AV0Z10100522
Keywords : cosmic rays * neutrinos
Subject RIV: BF - Elementary Particles and High Energy Physics
Impact factor: 4.558, year: 2011
http://prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v84/i12/e122005

The Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to neutrinos of all flavours above 0.1 EeV. These interact through charged and neutral currents in the atmosphere giving rise to extensive air showers. When interacting deeply in the atmosphere at nearly horizontal incidence, neutrinos can be distinguished from regular hadronic cosmic rays by the broad time structure of their shower signals in the water-Cherenkov detectors. In this paper we present for the first time an analysis based on down-going neutrinos. We describe the search procedure, the possible sources of background, the method to compute the exposure and the associated systematic uncertainties. No candidate neutrinos have been found in data collected from 1 January 2004 to 31 May 2010. Assuming an E^−2 differential energy spectrum the limit on the single flavour neutrino is E^2 dN/dE < 1.74 10^-7 GeV cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1 at 90% C.L. in the energy range 10^17eV < E < 10^20eV.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0205296