Muon Vertical Depth Intensity Distribution at the South Pole

with

AMANDA-II

Kimberly Moody1 August 2003

Meet AMANDA-IIAntarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array

Located at the Geographic South Pole

677 Optical Modules (OMs) arranged on 19 strings

1500 to 2000m below the surface

AMANDA is a neutrino telescope...

The Beauty of Neutrinos

Protons deflected...

Photons interacting with cosmic background...

The neutrino remains unaffected!

Black Hole, Gamma Ray Burst

What kind of signal does AMANDA receive?

Diffuse Cosmic Rays (well-modeled)interact with atmosphere to produce, among other things, low energy muons.

What kind of signal does AMANDA receive?

Diffuse Cosmic Rays

Prompt Muons (different models suggest different fluxes; the subject of my research)

What kinds of signals does AMANDA receive?

Diffuse Cosmic Rays

Prompt Muons

High-Energy Neutrinos-bingo!-the tell-tale particles AMANDA is looking for.

Atm

osph

ere

High EnergyExtraterrestrialNeutrino

High Energy Prompt Muon (from charmed meson decay)

Low Energy Conventional Muons(from kaon and pion decay)

Convention Muons (absorbed by Earth)

Signals

Atmospheric Neutrino

This way up.

Data versus Monte Carloand Quality Criteria

Data versus Monte Carloand Quality Criteria

Slant Depth

173

0m

8650m

1 2 3 45

67

8

Slant Depth BinningBin=1730/cos θ

Prompt MuonsRQPM, QGSM: Most Optimistic Models

Graph: Gelmini, Gondolo, Varieschi Measuring the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux with down-going muons in neutrinos telescopes (2002) hep-ph/0209111

The Results of Our Prompt Muon Search

Prompt Contamination in First BinsR=Npm/Nmc

R(2)

= 0.106 %R(1)

= 0.0765 %

Bin 1 Bin 2

Prompt Muon Contamination in Last Bins R=Npm/Nmc

Bin Seven Bin Eight

R(8)

=1.55 %R(7)

=0.982 %

cos θ cos θ

cos θ cos θ

Inte

nsit

y by

bin

, cm

-2s-1

sr-1

Bin 1 Bin 2

Bin 3 Bin 4

Inte

nsit

y by

bin

, cm

-2s-1

sr-1

cos θ cos θ

cos θ cos θ

Bin 5 Bin 6

Many Thanks To:

National Science Foundation

The AMANDA Collaboration

Fellow Charlie's Angels

Dr. Bob Benjamin

Dr. Paolo Desiati