Bi-Weekly Student Seminar: Sabrina Bechet, "tau neutrino search in IceCube"

Thursday 24 Mar 2011, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Brussels

Universe

The IceCube neutrino telescope is an array of Optical Modules (DOM) deployed in a volume of 1 cubic km. The DOMs record the Cherenkov light produced by secondary particles emerging from neutrino interactions with the ice. Based on the patern of the observed light, we can differentiate between lepton flavors and thus determine the primary neutrino flavor. Astrophysical models only predict production of muon and electron neutrinos in significant amounts. However, after traveling cosmological distances we expect on Earth the same flux for all three neutrino flavors due to neutrino oscillations. Because the tau neutrino production in the atmosphere is also negligible, this channel is nearly free of atmospheric background. In this talk, i'm going to present how we can identify tau neutrinos through the detection of a tau decaying into a muon and explain the strategy developped to distinguish a tau from a muon track.