Atmospheric Neutrinos and Their Physics Potential
by
Niels Bohr Seminar Room
Schuster
The interaction between cosmic rays and atmospheric nuclei generates a broad spectrum of neutrinos ranging from MeV to TeV scales. These atmospheric neutrinos played an important role in the discovery of neutrino oscillations, providing the only evidence of non-zero neutrino masses. Today, they continue to significantly enhance our understanding of neutrino oscillations and mixing within the lepton sector. This presentation delves into the present sensitivity of current atmospheric neutrino experiments. We explore the potential for a combined analysis by conducting the first comprehensive analysis encompassing Super-Kamiokande, Hyper-Kamiokande, IceCube-Upgrade, and ORCA. By addressing shared systematic uncertainties originating from flux and neutrino-water interactions, along with the unique uncertainties of each experiment, our study indicates that by 2030, these experiments can discern the octant of θ23 at a confidence level of 99%, establish the neutrino mass ordering with a significance exceeding 5σ, and provide crucial insights into the leptonic sector's CP-violating phase (δCP). Additionally, we will discuss their future sensitivity concerning the primary uncertainties in the next generation of neutrino experiments. Beyond flavor oscillation studies, atmospheric neutrinos offer contributions to various research domains. During this presentation, we will explore their potential for measuring the Earth's inner mass distribution.