Atmospheric Tau Neutrinos in a Multi-kiloton Liquid Argon Detector

Understand

An ultra-large Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber-based neutrino detector will have the uncommon ability to detect atmospheric tau neutrino events.

• This paper discusses the most promising modes for identifying charged current tau neutrino interactions, and shows that, with simple kinematic cuts, ~30 tau neutrinos can be isolated in a 100 kt*yr exposure, with greater than 4 sigma significance.
• This sample is sufficient to perform flux-averaged total cross-section and cross-section shape parameterization measurements -- the first steps toward using tau neutrinos to search for physics beyond the Standard Model.