2007/11/01 by E. Borriello, A. Cuoco, G. Mangano +6 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.77.045019
published as Phys.Rev.D77:045019,2008 · 10 pages, 28 figures
arxiv created 2007/11/01 · openalex publication_date 2008/02/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2023/04/16 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
The energy-zenith angular event distribution in a neutrino telescope provides a unique tool to determine at the same time the neutrino-nucleon cross section at extreme kinematical regions, and the high-energy neutrino flux. By using a simple parametrization for fluxes and cross sections, we present a sensitivity analysis for the case of a km3 neutrino telescope. In particular, we consider the specific case of an underwater Mediterranean telescope placed at the NEMO site, although most of our results also apply to an under-ice detector such as IceCube. We determine the sensitivity to departures from standard values of the cross sections above 1 PeV which can be probed independently from an a priori knowledge of the normalization and energy dependence of the flux. We also stress that the capability to tag downgoing neutrino showers in the PeV range against the cosmic-ray induced background of penetrating muons appears to be a crucial requirement to derive meaningful constraints on the cross section.