An analysis of a tau-neutrino hypothesis for the near-horizon cosmic-ray-like events observed by ANITA-IV

• Main Authors: Prechelt, R, Wissel, S, Romero-Wolf, A, Gorham, PW, Allison, P, Banerjee, O, Batten, L, Beatty, JJ, Belov, K, Besson, DZ, Binns, WR, Bugaev, V, Cao, P, Chen, CH, Chen, P, Chen, Y, Clem, JM, Connolly, A, Cremonesi, L, Dailey, B, Deaconu, C, Dowkontt, PF, Fox, BD, Gordon, JWH, Hast, C, Hill, B, Hsu, SY, Huang, JJ, Hughes, K, Hupe, R, Israel, MH, Liewer, KM, Liu, TC, Ludwig, AB, Macchiarulo, L, Matsuno, S, McBride, K, Miki, C, Mulrey, K, Nam, J, Naudet, C, Nichol, RJ, Novikov, A, Oberla, E, Prohira, S, Rauch, BF, Ripa, J, Roberts, JM, Rotter, B, Russell, JW, Saltzberg, D, Seckel, D, Schoorlemmer, H, Shiao, J, Stafford, S, Stockham, J, Stockham, M, Strutt, B, Sutherland, MS, Varner, GS, Vieregg, AG, Wang, N, Wang, SH, Wissel, SA
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Proceedings of Science 2022
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10162913/1/ICRC2021_1110.pdf; https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10162913/

We present the results of a simulation of the acceptance of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) to possible υτ point source fluxes detected via τ-lepton-induced air showers. This investigation is framed around the detection of four upward-going extensive air shower events observed very close to the horizon in ANITA-IV. These four events as well as the overall diffuse and point source exposure to Earth-skimming υτ are also compared against published ultrahigh-energy neutrino limits from the Pierre Auger Observatory. We find that while these four events were detected at sky coordinates close to ANITA’s maximum υτ sensitivity and were not simultaneously visible by Auger, the implied fluence necessary for ANITA to observe these events is in tension with limits set by Auger across a wide range of energies and is additionally in tension with ANITA’s Askaryan in-ice neutrino channel above 1019 eV.