Ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrinos and cosmic rays initiate particle cascades underneath the Moon's surface. These cascades have a negative charge excess and radiate Cherenkov radio emission in a process known as the Askaryan effect. The optimal frequency window for observation of these pulses with radio telescopes on the Earth is around 150 MHz. By observing the Moon with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope array we are able to set a new limit on the UHE neutrino flux. The PuMa II backend is used to monitor the Moon in 4 frequency bands between 113 and 175 MHz with a sampling frequency of 40 MHz. The narrowband radio interference is digitally filtered out and the dispersive effect of the Earth's ionosphere is compensated for. A trigger system is implemented to search for short pulses. By inserting simulated pulses in the raw data, the detection efficiency for pulses of various strength is calculated. With 47.6 hours of observation time, we are able to set a limit on the UHE neutrino flux. This new limit is an order of magnitude lower than existing limits. In the near future, the digital radio array LOFAR will be used to achieve an even lower limit.
The ANtarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) long-duration balloon experiment flies an interferometric radio array over Antarctica with a primary goal of detecting impulsive Askaryan radio emission from ultra-high-energy neutrinos interacting in the ice sheet. The third and fourth ANITA flights were completed in January 2015 and December 2016, respectively, obtaining the most stringent limits on the diffuse ultra-high-energy neutrino flux above 10$^{19.5}$ eV to date. We also discuss ongoing analyses and the proposed Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO), the successor to the A…
In this paper, we propose a hexagonal description for the flavor composition of ultrahigh-energy (UHE) neutrinos and antineutrinos, which will hopefully be determined at the future large neutrino telescopes. With such a geometrical description, we are able to clearly separate the individual flavor composition of neutrinos from that of antineutrinos in one single regular hexagon, which can be regarded as a natural generalization of the widely-used ternary plot. For illustration, we consider the $pp$ or $pγ$ collisions as the dominant production mechanism for UHE neutrinos and antineutrinos in t…
The observation of ultra-high-energy EeV-energy cosmogenic neutrinos provides a direct path to identifying the sources of the highest energy cosmic rays; searches have so far resulted in only upper limits on their flux. However, with the realization of cubic-kilometer detectors such as IceCube and, in the near future, KM3NeT, GVD-Baikal, and similar instruments, we anticipate the observation of PeV-energy cosmic neutrinos with high statistics. In this context, we draw attention to the opportunity to identify EeV tau neutrinos at PeV energy using Earth-traversing tau neutrinos. We show that Che…
Ultra-high energy neutrinos hold promise as cosmic messengers to advance the understanding of extreme astrophysical objects and environments as well as possible probes for discovering new physics. This proceeding describes the motivation for measuring high energy neutrinos. A short summary of the mechanisms for producing high energy neutrinos is provided along with an overview of current and proposed modes of detection. The science reach of the field is also briefly surveyed. As an example of the potential of neutrinos as cosmic messengers, the recent results from an IceCube Collaboration real…
The discovery of ultra-high-energy neutrinos, with energies above 100 PeV, may soon be within reach of upcoming neutrino telescopes. We present a robust framework to compute the statistical significance of point-source discovery via the detection of neutrino multiplets. We apply it to the radio array component of IceCube-Gen2. To identify a source with $3σ$ significance, IceCube-Gen2 will need to detect a triplet, at best, and an octuplet, at worst, depending on whether the source is steady-state or transient, and on its position in the sky. The discovery, or absence, of sources significantly …
Neutrino interactions with protons and neutrons probe their deep structure and may reveal new physics. The higher the neutrino energy, the sharper the probe. So far, the neutrino-nucleon ($νN$) cross section is known across neutrino energies from a few hundred MeV to a few PeV. Soon, ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic neutrinos, with energies above 100 PeV, could take us farther. So far, they have evaded discovery, but upcoming UHE neutrino telescopes endeavor to find them. We present the first detailed measurement forecasts of the UHE $νN$ cross section, geared to IceCube-Gen2, one of the leading…
Since astrophysical neutrinos are produced in the interactions of cosmic rays, identifying the origin of cosmic rays using directional correlations with neutrinos is one of the most interesting possibilities of the field. For that purpose, especially the Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) are promising, as they are deflected less by extragalactic and Galactic magnetic fields than cosmic rays at lower energies. However, photo-hadronic interactions of the UHECRs limit their horizon, while neutrinos do not interact over cosmological distances. We study the possibility to search for anisotropi…
Cosmogenic neutrinos are produced when ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) interact with cosmological photon fields. Limits on the diffuse flux of these neutrinos can be used to constrain the fraction of protons arriving at Earth with energies $E_{p} \gtrsim 30$ EeV, thereby providing constraints on the composition of UHECRs without fully relying on hadronic interaction models. We show to which extent current neutrino telescopes already constrain this fraction of protons and discuss the prospects for next-generation detectors to further constrain it. Additionally, we discuss the implication…
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has recently found compelling evidence for a particular blazar producing high-energy neutrinos and $\mathrm{PeV}$ cosmic rays, however the sources of cosmic rays above several $\mathrm{EeV}$ remain unidentified. It is believed that the same environments that accelerate ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) also produce high-energy neutrinos via hadronic interactions of lower-energy cosmic rays. Two out of three joint analyses of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array yielded hints for a possible directional corre…
Newborn, strongly magnetized neutron stars (so-called magnetars) surrounded by their stellar or merger ejecta are expected to be sources of ultrahigh-energy neutrinos via decay of mesons produced in hadronic interactions of protons which are accelerated to ultrahigh energies by magnetic dissipation of the spindown energy. We show that not only pions and kaons but also charm hadrons, which are typically neglected due to their small production cross sections, can represent dominant contributions to neutrino fluence at ultrahigh energies, because of their short lifetimes, while the ultrahigh-ener…
The number of events observed in neutrino telescopes depends on the neutrino fluxes in the Earth, their absorption while crossing the Earth and their interaction in the detector. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the QCD dynamics at high energies on the energy dependence of the average inelasticity and angular dependence of the absorption probability during the neutrino propagation through the Earth, as well in the determination of the properties of the incident astrophysical neutrino flux. Moreover, the number of events at the IceCube and IceCube - Gen2 are estimated considering dif…
Propagation of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays and the Production of Cosmogenic Neutrinos
我们提出了一个更新版本的{ \it SimProp} Monte Carlo程序来研究超高能宇宙射线在天体物理背景中的传播，计算地球上预期的宇宙成因中微子通量。次级中微子的研究为约束这些极高能粒子的源模型提供了有力的工具。我们将展示新探测到的PeV能量的冰立方中微子事件以及皮埃尔俄歇天文台和望远镜阵列实验的最新实验结果如何几乎在排除几个关于超高能宇宙射线天体物理源的假设的水平上。所得结果也可用于评估未来高能宇宙射线和中微子探测器的发现能力。
Earth-skimming neutrinos are those which travel through the Earth's crust at a shallow angle. For Ultra-High-Energy (E > 1 PeV; UHE) earth-skimming tau neutrinos, there is a high-probability that the tau lepton created by a neutrino-Earth interaction will emerge from the ground before it decays. When this happens, the decaying tau particle initiates an air shower of relativistic sub-atomic particles which emit Cherenkov radiation. To observe this Cherenkov radiation, we propose the Trinity Observatory. Using a novel optical structure design, pointing at the horizon, Trinity will observe the Ch…
We consider the effects of active-sterile secret neutrino interactions, mediated by a new pseudoscalar particle, on high- and ultra high-energy neutrino fluxes. In particular, we focus on the case of 3 active and 1 sterile neutrino coupled by a flavor dependent interaction, extending the case of 1 active and 1 sterile neutrino we have recently examined. We find that, depending on the kind of interaction of sterile neutrino with the active sector, new regions of the parameter space for secret interactions are now allowed leading to interesting phenomenological implications on two benchmark flux…
Proton-proton interaction and photo-hadronic interaction in cosmic accelerators are the two main channels for the production of cosmic ultra-high energy photons and neutrinos (TeV-PeV). In this Letter, we use FWW approach to obtain the production of cosmic ultra-high energy photons and neutrinos from the collision between UHE proton with magnetic field which could be considered as the virtualphoton in the rest frame of UHE proton. We name this as $pB$ process. The threshold for the occurrence of the $pB$ process is that the combination of the Lorentz factor of proton and the strength of the ma…
