SMuK 2023 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 141: Neutrino Astronomy V

T 141.6: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 23. März 2023, 18:45–19:00, POT/0251

Search for up-going air showers and constraints of BSM particles with the Pierre Auger Observatory* — •Baobiao Yue for the Pierre Auger collaboration — Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Gaußstr. 20, 42119, Wuppertal, Germany

We report on the search for up-going air showers using data from the Pierre Auger Observatory. The observation of such kind of showers with energies above 10¹⁷ eV has been reported by the ANITA experiment but waits explanation. Using 14 years of available Auger data, the exposure to up-going showers after accounting for all cuts exceeds the one of ANITA by a large factor. Defining a data-blinded search strategy, only one event was found in the zenith angle range [110^∘, 180^∘] to pass all cuts, which is consistent with a background expectation of 0.4 ± 0.2 events. The non-observation is used to derive stringent bounds on BSM particles that were discussed in the literature to explain the anomalous ANITA observation. These particles could be produced by high energy interactions within the atmosphere or the Earth and penetrate the Earth with only little absorption to eventually produce tau-particles initiating observable up-going air showers. We discuss the derived upper fluxes of such BSM particles as a function of their unknown cross section with matter and find the strongest bounds when it is at the level of 1% of the neutrino nucleon cross section at the same energy.

*Gefördert durch die BMBF Verbundforschung Astroteilchenphysik (Vorhaben 05A20PX1)