No Arabic abstract
This letter presents a combined measurement of the energy spectra of atmospheric $ u_e$ and $ u_mu$ in the energy range between $sim$100 GeV and $sim$50 TeV with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. The analysis uses 3012 days of detector livetime in the period 2007--2017, and selects 1016 neutrinos interacting in (or close to) the instrumented volume of the detector, yielding shower-like events (mainly from $ u_e+overline u_e$ charged current plus all neutrino neutral current interactions) and starting track events (mainly from $ u_mu + overline u_mu$ charged current interactions). The contamination by atmospheric muons in the final sample is suppressed at the level of a few per mill by different steps in the selection analysis, including a Boosted Decision Tree classifier. The distribution of reconstructed events is unfolded in terms of electron and muon neutrino fluxes. The derived energy spectra are compared with previous measurements that, above 100 GeV, are limited to experiments in polar ice and, for $ u_mu$, to Super-Kamiokande.
The data taken with the ANTARES neutrino telescope from 2007 to 2010, a total live time of 863 days, are used to measure the oscillation parameters of atmospheric neutrinos. Muon tracks are reconstructed with energies as low as 20 GeV. Neutrino oscillations will cause a suppression of vertical upgoing muon neutrinos of such energies crossing the Earth. The parameters determining the oscillation of atmospheric neutrinos are extracted by fitting the event rate as a function of the ratio of the estimated neutrino energy and reconstructed flight path through the Earth. Measurement contours of the oscillation parameters in a two-flavour approximation are derived. Assuming maximum mixing, a mass difference of $Delta m_{32}^2=(3.1pm 0.9)cdot 10^{-3}$ eV$^2$ is obtained, in good agreement with the world average value.
From an exposure of 25.5~kiloton-years of the Super-Kamiokande detector, 900 muon-like and 983 electron-like single-ring atmospheric neutrino interactions were detected with momentum $p_e > 100$ MeV/$c$, $p_mu > 200$ MeV/$c$, and with visible energy less than 1.33 GeV. Using a detailed Monte Carlo simulation, the ratio $(mu/e)_{DATA}/(mu/e)_{MC}$ was measured to be $0.61 pm 0.03(stat.) pm 0.05(sys.)$, consistent with previous results from the Kamiokande, IMB and Soudan-2 experiments, and smaller than expected from theoretical models of atmospheric neutrino production.
Atmospheric neutrinos are produced during cascades initiated by the interaction of primary cosmic rays with air nuclei. In this paper, a measurement of the atmospheric u_mu + bar{ u}_mu energy spectrum in the energy range 0.1 - 200 TeV is presented, using data collected by the ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope from 2008 to 2011. Overall, the measured flux is ~25% higher than predicted by the conventional neutrino flux, and compatible with the measurements reported in ice. The flux is compatible with a single power-law dependence with spectral index gamma_{meas}=3.58pm 0.12. With the present statistics the contribution of prompt neutrinos cannot be established.
We report the first measurement of the atmospheric electron neutrino flux in the energy range between approximately 80 GeV and 6 TeV, using data recorded during the first year of operation of IceCubes DeepCore low energy extension. Techniques to identify neutrinos interacting within the DeepCore volume and veto muons originating outside the detector are demonstrated. A sample of 1029 events is observed in 281 days of data, of which 496 $pm$ 66(stat.) $pm$ 88(syst.) are estimated to be cascade events, including both electron neutrino and neutral current events. The rest of the sample includes residual backgrounds due to atmospheric muons and charged current interactions of atmospheric muon neutrinos. The flux of the atmospheric electron neutrinos is consistent with models of atmospheric neutrinos in this energy range. This constitutes the first observation of electron neutrinos and neutral current interactions in a very large volume neutrino telescope optimized for the TeV energy range.
A search for a diffuse flux of astrophysical muon neutrinos, using data collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope is presented. A $(0.83times 2pi)$ sr sky was monitored for a total of 334 days of equivalent live time. The searched signal corresponds to an excess of events, produced by astrophysical sources, over the expected atmospheric neutrino background. The observed number of events is found compatible with the background expectation. Assuming an $E^{-2}$ flux spectrum, a 90% c.l. upper limit on the diffuse $ u_mu$ flux of $E^2Phi_{90%} = 5.3 times 10^{-8} mathrm{GeV cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1}} $ in the energy range 20 TeV - 2.5 PeV is obtained. Other signal models with different energy spectra are also tested and some rejected.