https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201920901005
Search for tau neutrinos with the MAGIC telescopes: improving selection criteria*
1 University of Rijeka, Department of Physics, 51000 Rijeka
2 Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), D-15738 Zeuthen, Germany
3 Humboldt University of Berlin, Institut für Physik D-12489 Berlin Germany
4 Università di Padova and INFN, I-35131 Padova, Italy
5 Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences, PL-31342 Krakow, Poland
6 Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, D-80805 München, Germany
7 the full list of MAGIC members is available at: wwwmagic.mppmu.mpg.de
* original title was: Search for tau neutrinos with the MAGIC telescopes: the quest continues
a e-mail: marina.manganaro@phy.uniri.hr
Published online: 13 May 2019
MAGIC, a system of two Cherenkov telescopes located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (2200 a.s.l.) in the Canary Island of La Palma, has lately been engaged in an unconventional task: the search for a signature of particle showers induced by earth-skimming cosmic tau neutrinos arising from the ocean, in the PeV to EeV energy range. When pointing at the sea, the MAGIC telescopes can collect data in a range of about 5 deg in zenith and 80 deg in azimuth: the analysis of the shower images from ~30 hours of data, together with the simulations of upward-going tau neutrino showers, shows that the air showers induced by tau neutrinos can be discriminated from the hadronic background coming from a similar direction. We have calculated the point source acceptance and the expected event rates, assuming an incoming v flux consistent with IceCube measurements, and for a sample of generic neutrino fluxes from photohadronic interactions in AGNs and GRBs. A 90% C.L. upper limit on the tau-neutrino point source flux of 2.0 × 10–4 GeV cm–2 s–1 has been obtained. The presented results can also be important for future Cherenkov experiments such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array. This next generation ground-based observatory can have a much better possibility to detect v, given its larger FOV and much larger effective area.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
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