Simulation of UHE muons propagation for GEANT3

A simulation package for the transport of high energy muons has been developed. It has been conceived to replace the muon propagation software modules implemented in the detector simulation program GEANT3. Here we discuss the results achieved with our package and we check the agreement with numerical calculations up to 10**8 GeV.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 1 Table. AMSTeX document, acknowledgments adde

UHE and EHE neutrino induced taus inside the Earth

Tau neutrinos interacting inside the Earth produce $\tau$ leptons which thereafter can decay inside the atmosphere. The propagation of extremely energetic \nut's and $\tau$'s through the Earth is studied by means of a detailed Monte Carlo simulation, taking into account all major mechanisms of \nut interactions and $\tau$ energy loss as well as decay modes. The rates of $\tau$'s emerging from the Earth are determined as a function of $\tau$'s energy for several cosmic neutrino models.Comment: 21 pages, accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic

NLO corrections to ultra-high energy neutrino-nucleon scattering, shadowing and small x

We reconsider the Standard Model interactions of ultra-high energy neutrinos with matter. The next to leading order QCD corrections are presented for charged-current and neutral-current processes. Contrary to popular expectations, these corrections are found to be quite substantial, especially for very large (anti-) neutrino energies. Hence, they need to be taken into account in any search for new physics effects in high-energy neutrino interactions. In our extrapolation of the parton densities to kinematical regions as yet unexplored directly in terrestrial accelerators, we are guided by double asymptotic scaling in the large Q^2 and small Bjorken x region and to models of saturation in the low Q^2 and low x regime. The sizes of the consequent uncertainties are commented upon. We also briefly discuss some variables which are insensitive to higher order QCD corrections and are hence suitable in any search for new physics.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX2e, uses JHEP3.cls (included), 8 ps files for figures published versio

Two years of flight of the Pamela experiment: results and perspectives

PAMELA is a satellite borne experiment designed to study with great accuracy cosmic rays of galactic, solar, and trapped nature in a wide energy range (protons: 80 MeV-700 GeV, electrons 50 MeV-400 GeV). Main objective is the study of the antimatter component: antiprotons (80 MeV-190 GeV), positrons (50 MeV-270 GeV) and search for antinuclei with a precision of the order of $10^{-8}$). The experiment, housed on board the Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite, was launched on June, $15^{th}$ 2006 in a $350\times 600 km$ orbit with an inclination of 70 degrees. In this work we describe the scientific objectives and the performance of PAMELA in its first two years of operation. Data on protons of trapped, secondary and galactic nature - as well as measurements of the December $13^{th}$ 2006 Solar Particle Event - are also provided.Comment: To appear on J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. as part of the proceedings of the International Workshop on Advances in Cosmic Ray Science March, 17-19, 2008 Waseda University, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japa

The EUSO simulation and analysis framework

ESAF is the simulation and analysis software framework developed for the EUSO experiment. ESAF's scope is the whole process of data simulations and data-analysis, from the primary particle interaction in atmosphere to the reconstruction of the event. Based on the ROOT package and designed using Object Oriented technology, ESAF is organized in two main programs: the full montecarlo simulation and the reconstruction framework. The former includes all the relevant physical contributions, shower development in atmosphere, light transport to the detector pupil and detector response, while the latter comprises basic data cleaning, track direction, shower profile and energy reconstruction algorithms. Here we describe the software architecture and its main features

A new measurement of the antiproton-to-proton flux ratio up to 100 GeV in the cosmic radiation

A new measurement of the cosmic ray antiproton-to-proton flux ratio between 1 and 100 GeV is presented. The results were obtained with the PAMELA experiment, which was launched into low-earth orbit on-board the Resurs-DK1 satellite on June 15th 2006. During 500 days of data collection a total of about 1000 antiprotons have been identified, including 100 above an energy of 20 GeV. The high-energy results are a ten-fold improvement in statistics with respect to all previously published data. The data follow the trend expected from secondary production calculations and significantly constrain contributions from exotic sources, e.g. dark matter particle annihilations.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Tracing very high energy neutrinos from cosmological distances in ice

Astrophysical sources of ultrahigh energy neutrinos yield tau neutrino fluxes due to neutrino oscillations. We study in detail the contribution of tau neutrinos with energies above PeV relative to the contribution of the other flavors. We consider several different initial neutrino fluxes and include tau neutrino regeneration in transit through the Earth and energy loss of charged leptons. We discuss signals of tau neutrinos in detectors such as IceCube, RICE and ANITA.Comment: 27 pages, 19 figure

Propagation of Muons and Taus at High Energies

The photonuclear contribution to charged lepton energy loss has been re-evaluated taking into account HERA results on real and virtual photon interactions with nucleons. With large $Q^2$ processes incorporated, the average muon range in rock for muon energies of $10^9$ GeV is reduced by only 5% as compared with the standard treatment. We have calculated the tau energy loss for energies up to $10^9$ GeV taking into consideration the decay of the tau. A Monte Carlo evaluation of tau survival probability and range show that at energies below $10^7-10^8$ GeV, depending on the material, only tau decays are important. At higher energies the tau energy losses are significant, reducing the survival probability of the tau. We show that the average range for tau is shorter than its decay length and reduce to 17 km in water for an incident tau energy of $10^9$ GeV, as compared with its decay length of 49 km at that energy. In iron, the average tau range is 4.7 km for the same incident energy.Comment: 25 pages including 8 figure

Extreme Energy nu_tau Propagation Through the Earth

The propagation of extremely energetic nu_tau's through the Earth is studied by means of a detailed Monte Carlo simulation. All major mechanisms of nu_tau interactions and tau energy loss as well as all its relevant decay modes are properly taken into account. The detection possibility of nu_tau's emerging from Earth in forthcoming neutrino telescopes is addressedComment: Revised version, to be published in Astroparticle Physic