Detection of tau neutrinos by Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes

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This paper investigates the potential to detect tau neutrinos in the energy range of 1-1000 PeV searching for very inclined showers with imaging Cherenkov telescopes.

• A neutrino induced tau lepton escaping from the Earth may decay and initiate an air shower which can be detected by a fluorescence or Cherenkov telescope.
• We present here a study of the detection potential of Earth-skimming neutrinos taking into account neutrino interactions in the Earth crust, local matter distributions at various detector sites, the development of tau-induced showers in air and the detection of Cherenkov photons with IACTs.
• We analyzed simulated shower images on the camera focal plane and implemented generic reconstruction chains based on Hillas parameters.