Evaluation of the potential of a gamma-ray observatory to detect astrophysical neutrinos through inclined showers

Abstract

We assess the capabilities of a ground-based gamma-ray observatory to detect astrophysical neutrinos with energies in the $100\mathrm{TeV}$ to $100\mathrm{PeV}$ range. The identification of these events would be done through the measurement of very inclined extensive air showers induced by downward-going and upward-going neutrinos. The discrimination of neutrino-induced showers in the overwhelming cosmic-ray background is achieved by analysing the balance of the total electromagnetic and muonic signals of the shower at the ground. We demonstrate that a $\mathrm{k}{\mathrm{m}}^2$-scale wide field-of-view ground-based gamma-ray observatory could detect a couple of Very-High to Ultra-High energy (VHE-UHE) neutrino events per year with a reasonable pointing accuracy, making it an interesting facility for multi-messenger studies with both photons and neutrinos.

12 pages, 14 figures, accepted in Phys.Rev.D

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