Echo Technique to Distinguish Flavors of Astrophysical Neutrinos

Shirley Weishi Li, Mauricio Bustamante, John F. Beacom

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number151101
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume122
Issue number15
Number of pages7
ISSN0031-9007
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Apr 2019

Keywords

  • astro-ph.HE
  • hep-ph

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