4.6 Article

Geometrical constraints of observing very high energy Earth-skimming neutrinos from space

Journal

Publisher

IOP Publishing Ltd
DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2019/03/021

Keywords

neutrino astronomy; neutrino detectors

Funding

  1. FACCTS program
  2. NASA awards at the University of Chicago [80NSSC18K0246, NNX17AJ82G, NNX13AH54G]
  3. NASA Awards at the Colorado School of Mines [80NSSC18K0477, NNX13AH55G]
  4. NASA under NASA/GSFC [16-APROBES16-0023]
  5. CFM Foundation for Research
  6. Labex ILP [ANR-10-LABX-63, ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02]
  7. NASA [473898, 472937, NNX13AH54G, NNX13AH55G] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The detection of very-high-energy (VHE) neutrinos (E-v greater than or similar to 10 PeV) is a challenge that future generations of experiments are being designed and constructed to address. One promising method relies on using the Earth as a neutrino target for indirect detection of skimming tau neutrinos interacting within the Earth and producing tau leptons that are able to escape and decay in the atmosphere. The tau decay produces upward-moving Extensive Air Showers (EASs). A space-based or suborbital instrument observing the ground near the Earth limb can search for the beamed Cherenkov signal produced by the up-going EAS resulting from the tau-lepton decay. In this paper, we derive the geometrical constraints for such an observation in general and for the specific case of the Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (POEMMA) mission currently under study, focusing on the Cherenkov signal detection. We show that, using reasonable orbital parameters, POEMMA can achieve full-sky coverage to search for potential neutrino sources over the length of its mission. We also show that follow-up of a transient Target-of-Opportunity (ToO), such as a flaring source, can be achieved within an orbit time scale depending on the source location on the celestial sphere and its relative position with respect to the Sun and the Moon.

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