Monte Carlo Simulation of High Energy Neutrino Event Transport in Cerenkov Detectors

Jones, Mykalin Ann Docker

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Monte Carlo Simulation of High Energy Neutrino Event Transport in Cerenkov Detectors

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This body of work was aimed at the development of an application for simulating high energy neutrino events (up to 100 GeV) in GEANT4. While various Monte Carlo techniques for neutrino transport exist, this was motivated by current interest in expanding GEANT4’s application to neutrino physics and handling of neutrino related processes. Multiple neutrino observatories detect astrophysical neutrinos by measuring optical Cerenkov light produced from interactions; this application may be modified for a variety of experiments. The need for the generation of the computationally inexpensive model discussed in the paper arose from neutrino oscillation predictions for high energy cosmic neutrinos. A predicted flavour ratio of approximately 1:1:1 for nu_e:nu_mu:nu_tau within the IceCube array motivates work towards differentiating neutrino flavour across detected events. Simulation techniques can be implemented to provide information that may be used when designing data analysis algorithms. Tau neutrino transport simulation was explored in detail utilizing the developed application to probe properties of 100 GeV nu_tau events as a preliminary investigation into its many uses. Results from 10,000 nu-tau events showed agreement with preliminary calculations relating the time of flight to the contribution to the signal over time of the optical photons produced at the neutrino interaction and tau decay vertices.

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