Proposal to Measure the Performance Potential of the TAUWER Neutrino Detector

TAUWER是卡内基梅隆大学、罗马大学和土耳其大学的合作项目，使用的是由Fargion在1999-2001年间首次提出的掠地中微子探测方案。陶威尔将实施它，以便提供一种更灵敏的仪器，以数量级的直接扩展，并且相对较低的成本。TAUWER是一个双层闪烁体采样望远镜，用于探测来自tau强子衰变的向上移动的空气簇射。牛轻子的强子衰变通道使一种简单的探测方案成为可能，该方案基于识别伽马、电子和µ子，并确定它们在簇射轴周围的空间密度。因此，从一组tau-轻子衰变中探测到的簇射可以很好地估计母体tau-中微子的光谱。如果未来的数据表明需要的话，TAUWER是可以扩展的。该小组之前的工作已经证明，TAUWER探测器可以根据飞行时间来分离向上和向下移动的轨迹，并在铅转换器之后通过波形分析来分离电子和µ子。该奖项为解决TAUWER验证中的下一个关键问题提供资金--如何才能很好地拒绝广泛空气簇射(EAS)事件，在EAS事件中，独立粒子撞击探测器站的两个闪烁体瓷砖，并产生模拟向上移动的簇射粒子相关时间的信号？这三个小组将致力于建立一个tau-中微子相互作用和空气簇射发展的库，以用于建立从簇射轮廓和成分信息返回母体中微子能量和角度所需的多变量似然方案。最后，将努力开发更具成本效益的方法来处理读数和波形数字化。所有这些步骤对于将TauWer建造成一台首屈一指的中微子天文望远镜(NA)的最终目标至关重要，以补充和扩展目前在IceCube和Auger上正在进行的工作。广泛的影响：超高能宇宙中微子可能为理解活动星系核和分布在我们宇宙时空连续体中的其他与黑洞有关的源的加速机制开辟了道路。TAUWER的成功实施和运行将对黑洞宇宙学和最高能量宇宙射线的起源这一我们这个时代的根本问题产生广泛的影响。

TAUWER, a collaboration of Carnegie Mellon, Rome, and Turkey, uses the earth-skimming neutrino detection scheme initially proposed by Fargion in 1999-2001. TAUWER will implement it so as to provide an instrument of greater sensitivity, straight-forward expansion by an order of magnitude, and relatively low cost. TAUWER is a two-layer scintillator sampling telescope to detect the upward-moving air showers from tau hadronic decays. The hadronic decay channel of the tau-lepton makes possible a simple detection scheme based on identifying gammas, electrons and muons and determining their spatial density around the shower axis. Thus, detecting the showers from a set of tau-lepton decays gives a good estimate of the parent tau-neutrino spectrum. TAUWER is expandable, should future data indicate that need.Previous work by this group has demonstrated that TAUWER detectors can separate upward and downward moving tracks by time of flight and to separate electrons and muons by waveform analysis after a Pb converter. This award provides funding to address the next crucial question in TAUWER validation - how well can one reject Extensive Air Shower (EAS) events in which independent particles hit the two scintillator tiles of a detector station and produce a signal that mimics the timing associated with an upward-moving shower particle? The three groups will work on building a library of tau-neutrino interactions and air shower development to use in building the multivariate likelihood scheme needed to go from shower profile and composition information back to parent neutrino energy and angle. Finally, there will be efforts to develop more cost-effective methods to handle the readout and waveform digitization. All these steps are crucial to the ultimate goal of constructing TAUWER as a premiere Neutrino Astronomy (NA) telescope to complement and extend the work now underway at IceCube and Auger.Broader Impacts: Ultrahigh-energy cosmic neutrinos potentially open the way to understanding the acceleration mechanisms in Active Galactic Nuclei and other black-hole related sources distributed throughout the space-time continuum of our universe. The successful implementation and operation of TAUWER will have broad impact on black hole cosmology and on the fundamental question of the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays, one of the fundamental questions of our time.