Eur Phys J C (2004) 33: s959-s961
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjcd/s2004-03-1844-9

PS12 Particle Astrophysics (cosmic rays)

The high-energy galactic tau neutrino flux and its atmospheric background

¹ Physics Division, National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
² Department of Physics, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
³ Institute of Physics, National Chiao-Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
⁴ Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan

Received: 7 November 2003
Accepted: 22 November 2003
Published online: 8 April 2004

Abstract

We compare the tau neutrino flux arising from the galaxy and the earth atmosphere for . The intrinsic and oscillated tau neutrino fluxes from both sources are considered. We find that, for E≥ 10³ GeV, the oscillated ν _τ flux along the galactic plane dominates over the maximal intrinsic atmospheric ν _τ flux, i.e., the flux along the horizontal direction. We also briefly comment on the prospects for observing these high-energy tau neutrinos.

PACS: 95.85.Ry Neutrino, muon, pion, and other elementary particles; cosmic rays – 13.85.Tp Cosmic-ray interactions