Echo Technique to Distinguish Flavors of Astrophysical Neutrinos

TY - JOUR

T1 - Echo Technique to Distinguish Flavors of Astrophysical Neutrinos

AU - Li, Shirley Weishi

AU - Bustamante, Mauricio

AU - Beacom, John F.

N1 - 12 pages, 9 figures, comments welcome

PY - 2019/4/16

Y1 - 2019/4/16

N2 - The flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos is a rich observable. However, present analyses cannot effectively distinguish particle showers induced by νe vs ντ. We show that this can be accomplished by measuring the intensities of the delayed, collective light emission from muon decays and neutron captures, which are, on average, greater for ντ than for νe. This new technique would significantly improve tests of the nature of astrophysical sources and of neutrino properties. We discuss the promising prospects for implementing it in IceCube and other detectors.

AB - The flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos is a rich observable. However, present analyses cannot effectively distinguish particle showers induced by νe vs ντ. We show that this can be accomplished by measuring the intensities of the delayed, collective light emission from muon decays and neutron captures, which are, on average, greater for ντ than for νe. This new technique would significantly improve tests of the nature of astrophysical sources and of neutrino properties. We discuss the promising prospects for implementing it in IceCube and other detectors.

KW - astro-ph.HE

KW - hep-ph

U2 - 10.1103/physrevlett.122.151101

DO - 10.1103/physrevlett.122.151101

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 31050546

SN - 0031-9007

VL - 122

JO - Physical Review Letters

JF - Physical Review Letters

IS - 15

M1 - 151101

ER -