The flavor composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrinos: measurement forecasts for in-ice radio-based EeV neutrino telescopes

Abstract

In-ice radio-detection is a promising technique to discover and characterize ultra-high-energy (UHE) neutrinos, with energies above 100 PeV, adopted by present - ARA, ARIANNA, and RNO-G - and planned - IceCube-Gen2. So far, their ability to measure neutrino flavor has remained unexplored. We show and quantify how the neutrino flavor can be measured with in-ice radio detectors using two complementary detection channels. The first channel, sensitive to ${\nu }_e$, identifies them via their charged-current interactions, whose radio emission is elongated in time due to the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal effect. The second channel, sensitive to ${\nu }_{\mu }$ and ${\nu }_{\tau }$, identifies events made up of multiple showers generated by the muons and taus they generate. We show this in state-of-the-art forecasts geared at IceCube-Gen2, for representative choices of the UHE neutrino flux. This newfound sensitivity could allow us to infer the UHE neutrino flavor composition at their sources - and thus the neutrino production mechanism - and to probe UHE neutrino physics.

arXiv commentAccepted in PRD (2024.05.30)

References in corpus (110)

• The fate of hints: updated global analysis of three-flavor neutrino oscillations
• From eV to EeV: Neutrino Cross Sections Across Energy Scales
• IceCube-Gen2: The Window to the Extreme Universe
• A combined maximum-likelihood analysis of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux measured with IceCube
• Photohadronic Neutrinos from Transients in Astrophysical Sources
• Differential limit on the extremely-high-energy cosmic neutrino flux in the presence of astrophysical background from nine years of IceCube data
• Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon-Neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data
• Measuring Flavor Ratios of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos
• Decay of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos
• Flavor Composition and Energy Spectrum of Astrophysical Neutrinos
• Tau Neutrino Appearance with a 1000 Megaparsec Baseline
• Flavoring Astrophysical Neutrinos: Flavor Ratios Depend on Energy
• Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube
• Open Questions in Cosmic-Ray Research at Ultrahigh Energies
• Measurement of the multi-TeV neutrino cross section with IceCube using Earth absorption
• Effects of neutrino mixing on high-energy cosmic neutrino flux
• Theoretically palatable flavor combinations of astrophysical neutrinos
• Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays
• Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos, a Challenge for Neutrino Telescopes
• Linking High-Energy Cosmic Particles by Black-Hole Jets Embedded in Large-Scale Structures
• New Physics in Astrophysical Neutrino Flavor
• Precision Measurements with High Energy Neutrino Beams
• Probing BSM Neutrino Physics with Flavor and Spectral Distortions: Prospects for Future High-Energy Neutrino Telescopes
• Extracting the Energy-Dependent Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section Above 10 TeV Using IceCube Showers
• A simplified view of blazars: the neutrino background
• Design and Sensitivity of the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G)
• Measurements using the inelasticity distribution of multi-TeV neutrino interactions in IceCube
• Probing the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with neutrinos in the EeV energy range using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Neutrino Observatories Can Characterize Cosmic Sources and Neutrino Properties
• Testing the Newborn Pulsar Origin of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays with EeV Neutrinos
• A new view on Auger data and cosmogenic neutrinos in light of different nuclear disintegration and air-shower models
• Testing decay of astrophysical neutrinos with incomplete information
• Performance and Simulation of the RICE detector
• Spectral analysis of the high-energy IceCube neutrinos
• Sensitivity to ${\theta }_{13}$ and $\delta$ in the Decaying Astrophysical Neutrino Scenario
• On the flavor composition of the high-energy neutrino events in IceCube
• Determining the fraction of cosmic-ray protons at ultra-high energies with cosmogenic neutrinos
• Flavor Ratios of Astrophysical Neutrinos: Implications for Precision Measurements
• Photohadronic Origin of the TeV-PeV Neutrinos Observed in IceCube
• Energy dependent neutrino flavor ratios from cosmic accelerators on the Hillas plot
• AGN jets as the origin of UHECRs and perspectives for the detection of astrophysical source neutrinos at EeV energies
• Which is the flavor of cosmic neutrinos seen by IceCube?
• A Comprehensive Approach to Tau-Lepton Production by High-Energy Tau Neutrinos Propagating Through Earth
• Constraints on the Diffuse Flux of Ultra-High Energy Neutrinos from Four Years of Askaryan Radio Array Data in Two Stations
• Inferring the flavor of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos at their sources
• NuRadioReco: A reconstruction framework for radio neutrino detectors
• The Future of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrino Flavor Measurements
• Snowmass White Paper: Beyond the Standard Model effects on Neutrino Flavor
• Astrophysical neutrinos flavored with Beyond the Standard Model physics
• Pseudo-Dirac Neutrino Scenario: Cosmic Neutrinos at Neutrino Telescopes
• Flavor Composition of UHE Neutrinos at Source and at Neutrino Telescopes
• Analysis of the 4-year IceCube high-energy starting events
• Progress towards characterizing ultrahigh energy cosmic ray sources
• An Analysis of Cosmic Neutrinos: Flavor Composition at Source and Neutrino Mixing Parameters
• Universe's Worth of Electrons to Probe Long-Range Interactions of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos
• Testing neutrino decay scenarios with IceCube data
• Probing the 2-3 leptonic mixing at high-energy neutrino telescopes
• Searching for Leptoquarks at IceCube and the LHC
• Practical and accurate calculations of Askaryan radiation
• Complete predictions for high-energy neutrino propagation in matter
• Flavor of cosmic neutrinos preserved by ultralight dark matter
• Neutrino propagation in the galactic dark matter halo
• Shower Power: Isolating the Prompt Atmospheric Neutrino Flux Using Electron Neutrinos
• High energy neutrino yields from astrophysical sources I: Weakly magnetized sources
• Tau Neutrinos in the Next Decade: from GeV to EeV
• Explanation for the low flux of high energy astrophysical muon-neutrinos
• NuRadioMC: Simulating the radio emission of neutrinos from interaction to detector
• Measurement of the high-energy all-flavor neutrino-nucleon cross section with IceCube
• Oscillation effects on high-energy neutrino fluxes from astrophysical hidden sources
• Electron and Photon Interactions in the Regime of Strong LPM Suppression
• Detection of astrophysical tau neutrino candidates in IceCube
• The natural parametrization of cosmic neutrino oscillations
• Discovering Long Wavelength Neutrino Oscillations in the Distorted Neutrino Spectrum of Galactic Supernova Remnants
• On the squeezed limit of the bispectrum in general single field inflation
• Interplay of energy dependent astrophysical neutrino flavor ratios and new physics effects
• Energy-independent new physics in the flavour ratios of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos
• The ultra-high-energy neutrino-nucleon cross section: measurement forecasts for an era of cosmic EeV-neutrino discovery
• The signatures of secondary leptons in radio-neutrino detectors in ice
• Non-standard neutrino interactions in the Earth and the flavor of astrophysical neutrinos
• Unitarity Bounds of Astrophysical Neutrinos
• A search for cosmogenic neutrinos with the ARIANNA test bed using 4.5 years of data
• Ultra-high neutrino fluxes as a probe for non-standard physics
• Reconstructing the neutrino energy for in-ice radio detectors
• Astrophysical Neutrino Production Diagnostics with the Glashow Resonance
• Observing EeV neutrinos through the Earth: GZK and the anomalous ANITA events
• Diffuse Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Fluxes and Physics Beyond the Standard Model
• Constraining Astrophysical Neutrino Flavor Composition from Leptonic Unitarity
• Erratum: A Comprehensive Approach to Tau-Lepton Production by High-Energy Tau Neutrinos Propagating Through Earth [Phys. Rev. D 97, 023021 (2018), arXiv:1707.00334]
• Using High-Energy Neutrinos As Cosmic Magnetometers
• The flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos after 8 years of IceCube: an indication of neutron decay scenario?
• Cosmic Neutrino Flavor Ratios with Broken ${\nu }_{\mu }-{\nu }_{\tau }$ Symmetry
• A low-threshold ultrahigh-energy neutrino search with the Askaryan Radio Array
• Probing the angular and polarization reconstruction of the ARIANNA detector at the South Pole
• Reconstructing the arrival direction of neutrinos in deep in-ice radio detectors
• Nuclear effects in high-energy neutrino interactions
• Flavor ratios of extragalactical neutrinos and neutrino shortcuts in extra dimensions
• IceCube Flavor Ratios with Identified Astrophysical Sources: Towards Improving New Physics Testability
• Detector Requirements for Model-Independent Measurements of Ultrahigh Energy Neutrino Cross Sections
• Probing CP violation with the three years ultra-high energy neutrinos from IceCube
• TauRunner: A Public Python Program to Propagate Neutral and Charged Leptons
• Deep-learning-based reconstruction of the neutrino direction and energy for in-ice radio detectors
• Neutrino propagation in the Earth and emerging charged leptons with $\text{nuPyProp}$
• Improving sensitivity of the ARIANNA detector by rejecting thermal noise with deep learning
• Flavors of Astrophysical Neutrinos with Active-Sterile Mixing
• Near-future discovery of point sources of ultra-high-energy neutrinos
• Feasibility of Determining Diffuse Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Neutrino Flavor Ratio through ARA Neutrino Observatory
• IceCube constraints on Violation of Equivalence Principle
• Measuring the Polarization Reconstruction Resolution of the ARIANNA Neutrino Detector with Cosmic Rays
• Atmospheric muons at PeV energies in radio neutrino detectors
• Energy-dependent flavour ratios in neutrino telescopes from charm

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Final state radiation from high and ultrahigh energy neutrino interactions
• Two-detector flavor sensitivity to ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrinos
• In-ice Askaryan Emission from Air Showers: Implications for Radio Neutrino Detectors
• No Flavor Anisotropy in the High-Energy Neutrino Sky Upholds Lorentz Invariance
• Event Reconstruction for Radio-Based In-Ice Neutrino Detectors with Neural Posterior Estimation