Uncertainties in Atmospheric Neutrino Fluxes

Abstract

An evaluation of the principal uncertainties in the computation of neutrino fluxes produced in cosmic ray showers in the atmosphere is presented. The neutrino flux predictions are needed for comparison with experiment to perform neutrino oscillation studies. The paper concentrates on the main limitations which are due to hadron production uncertainties. It also treats primary cosmic ray flux uncertainties, which are at a lower level. The absolute neutrino fluxes are found to have errors of around 15% in the neutrino energy region important for contained events underground. Large cancellations of these errors occur when ratios of fluxes are considered, in particular, the ${\nu }_{\mu }/{\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }$ ratio below $E_{\nu }=1$ GeV, the $({\nu }_{\mu }+{\bar{\nu }}_{\mu })/({\nu }_e+{\bar{\nu }}_e)$ ratio below $E_{\nu }=10$ GeV and the up/down ratios above $E_{\nu }=1$ GeV are at the 1% level. A detailed breakdown of the origin of these errors and cancellations is presented.

14 pages, 22 postscript figures, written in Revtex

Cited by in corpus (52)

• Calculation of atmospheric neutrino flux using the interaction model calibrated with atmospheric muon data
• Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon-Neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data
• The Muon Puzzle in cosmic-ray induced air showers and its connection to the Large Hadron Collider
• Prospects for Beyond the Standard Model Physics Searches at the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment
• Measurement of Atmospheric Tau Neutrino Appearance with IceCube DeepCore
• Influence of hadronic interaction models and the cosmic ray spectrum on the high energy atmospheric muon and neutrino flux
• Determining the Neutrino Mass Ordering and Oscillation Parameters with KM3NeT/ORCA
• Measurement of the Atmospheric ${\nu }_e$ flux in IceCube
• Detection of Atmospheric Muon Neutrinos with the IceCube 9-String Detector
• Searching for eV-scale sterile neutrinos with eight years of atmospheric neutrinos at the IceCube neutrino telescope
• Characterization of the Astrophysical Diffuse Neutrino Flux using Starting Track Events in IceCube
• Study of TeV Neutrinos with Upward Showering Muons in Super-Kamiokande
• Measurement of Atmospheric Neutrino Mixing with Improved IceCube DeepCore Calibration and Data Processing
• Neutrino mass hierarchy extraction using atmospheric neutrinos in ice
• Long-Range Lepton Flavor Interactions and Neutrino Oscillations
• DUNE atmospheric neutrinos: Earth Tomography
• Neutrino, $\gamma$-ray and cosmic ray fluxes from the core of the closest radio galaxies
• Exploring the Earth matter effect with atmospheric neutrinos in ice
• Probing new physics with long-lived charged particles produced by atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos
• PINGU and the neutrino mass hierarchy: Statistical and systematic aspects
• DAEMONFLUX: DAta-drivEn MuOn-calibrated atmospheric Neutrino Flux
• "Discrepant hardenings" in cosmic ray spectra: a first estimate of the effects on secondary antiproton and diffuse gamma-ray yields
• Searching for Decoherence from Quantum Gravity at the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory
• Uncertainties in Atmospheric Muon-Neutrino Fluxes Arising from Cosmic-Ray Primaries
• Atmospheric neutrinos in ice and measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters
• On the Accuracy of Underground Muon Intensity Calculations
• TeV $\gamma$-ray fluxes from the long campaigns on Mrk421 as constraints on the emission of TeV-PeV Neutrinos and UHECRs
• A search for an eV-scale sterile neutrino using improved high-energy ${\nu }_{\mu }$ event reconstruction in IceCube
• Galactic and Extragalactic Analysis of the Astrophysical Muon Neutrino Flux with 12.3 years of IceCube Track Data
• Evidence for a Spectral Break or Curvature in the Spectrum of Astrophysical Neutrinos from 5 TeV--10 PeV
• Neutrino Astronomy with IceCube
• Seasonal Variation of the Underground Cosmic Muon Flux Observed at Daya Bay
• Observation of Seasonal Variations of the Flux of High-Energy Atmospheric Neutrinos with IceCube
• Data-driven hadronic interaction model for atmospheric lepton flux calculations
• Neutrino Backgrounds in Future Liquid Noble Element Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments
• Combined sensitivity of JUNO and KM3NeT/ORCA to the neutrino mass ordering
• Improved measurements of the TeV-PeV extragalactic neutrino spectrum from joint analyses of IceCube tracks and cascades
• Cosmic Ray Muons in Laboratories Deep Underground
• Measuring Oscillations with A Million Atmospheric Neutrinos
• Methods and stability tests associated with the sterile neutrino search using improved high-energy ${\nu }_{\mu }$ event reconstruction in IceCube
• Search for a light sterile neutrino with 7.5 years of IceCube DeepCore data
• Constraints on non-unitary neutrino mixing in light of atmospheric and reactor neutrino data
• A measurement of proton-carbon forward scattering in a proof-of-principle test of the EMPHATIC spectrometer
• First Detailed Calculation of Atmospheric Neutrino Foregrounds to the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background in Super-Kamiokande
• Light, Unstable Sterile Neutrinos: Phenomenology, a Search in the IceCube Experiment, and a Global Picture
• Atmospheric Lepton Fluxes via Two-Dimensional Matrix Cascade Equations
• Exploration of mass splitting and muon/tau mixing parameters for an eV-scale sterile neutrino with IceCube
• Sensitivity to light sterile neutrino mixing parameters with KM3NeT/ORCA
• Measurements of the charge ratio and polarization of cosmic-ray muons with the Super-Kamiokande detector
• Composite asymmetric dark matter with a dark photon portal: Multimessenger tests
• Seasonal Variations of the Atmospheric Muon Neutrino Spectrum measured with IceCube
• ${\delta }_{CP}$-free constraints on NSI parameters ${\epsilon }_{e\mu }$ and ${\epsilon }_{e\tau }$ using high-purity ${\nu }_{\mu }$ CC events at IceCube DeepCore