Study of the internal structure of the Earth using neutrino oscillations at IceCube DeepCore

Abstract

Earth's mass and internal structure have been primarily studied through gravitational and seismic methods. Neutrinos, however, offer an independent way to explore Earth's interior via matter effects in neutrino oscillations that depend on the electron distribution inside Earth, and hence its matter density. Our study uses atmospheric neutrinos at DeepCore, a densely instrumented sub-detector of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, to estimate Earth's mass and layer densities. We also assess how the upcoming IceCube Upgrade, with denser instrumentation, could improve these measurements.

Comments: 4 pages and 1 figure. Contribution to the 17th International Conference on Interconnections Between Particle Physics and Cosmology (PPC 2024). Published in Springer Proceedings in Physics, vol 322. Springer, Singapore