Atmospheric neutrino oscillations and tau neutrinos in ice

Abstract

The main goal of the IceCube Deep Core Array is to search for neutrinos of astrophysical origins. Atmospheric neutrinos are commonly considered as a background for these searches. We show here that cascade measurements in the Ice Cube Deep Core Array can provide strong evidence for tau neutrino appearance in atmospheric neutrino oscillations. A careful study of these tau neutrinos is crucial, since they constitute an irreducible background for astrophysical neutrino detection.

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures