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Study of the internal structure of the Earth using neutrino oscillations at IceCube DeepCore

Sharmistha Chattopadhyay

TL;DR

This work tackles the problem of probing Earth's interior using an independent probe based on neutrino oscillations in matter, leveraging the MSW effect and parametric resonances. The authors develop a framework that uses atmospheric neutrinos detected by IceCube DeepCore and simulated data to estimate a neutrino-derived Earth mass $M_\nu$ relative to the true mass $M_\oplus$, as well as correlated layer densities encoded by $\alpha$ and $\alpha_c$, under gravitational constraints. They quantify Asimov sensitivities with 9.3 years of DeepCore data and project substantial gains when incorporating 3 years of IceCube Upgrade data, showing that external mass/moment constraints tighten the density parameter space. The results demonstrate neutrino-oscillation tomography as a complementary geophysical tool to seismic and gravity methods, with future upgrades yielding meaningful improvements in interior density determinations.

Abstract

Earth's mass and internal structure have been primarily studied through gravitational and seismic methods. Neutrinos, however, offer an independent way to explore Earth's interior via matter effects in neutrino oscillations that depend on the electron distribution inside Earth, and hence its matter density. Our study uses atmospheric neutrinos at DeepCore, a densely instrumented sub-detector of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, to estimate Earth's mass and layer densities. We also assess how the upcoming IceCube Upgrade, with denser instrumentation, could improve these measurements.

Study of the internal structure of the Earth using neutrino oscillations at IceCube DeepCore

TL;DR

This work tackles the problem of probing Earth's interior using an independent probe based on neutrino oscillations in matter, leveraging the MSW effect and parametric resonances. The authors develop a framework that uses atmospheric neutrinos detected by IceCube DeepCore and simulated data to estimate a neutrino-derived Earth mass relative to the true mass , as well as correlated layer densities encoded by and , under gravitational constraints. They quantify Asimov sensitivities with 9.3 years of DeepCore data and project substantial gains when incorporating 3 years of IceCube Upgrade data, showing that external mass/moment constraints tighten the density parameter space. The results demonstrate neutrino-oscillation tomography as a complementary geophysical tool to seismic and gravity methods, with future upgrades yielding meaningful improvements in interior density determinations.

Abstract

Earth's mass and internal structure have been primarily studied through gravitational and seismic methods. Neutrinos, however, offer an independent way to explore Earth's interior via matter effects in neutrino oscillations that depend on the electron distribution inside Earth, and hence its matter density. Our study uses atmospheric neutrinos at DeepCore, a densely instrumented sub-detector of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, to estimate Earth's mass and layer densities. We also assess how the upcoming IceCube Upgrade, with denser instrumentation, could improve these measurements.
Paper Structure (6 sections, 1 figure)

This paper contains 6 sections, 1 figure.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Analysis
  3. Asimov Sensitivity with DeepCore
  4. Asimov Sensitivity with Upgrade
  5. Conclusion
  6. Acknowledgement.

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: The top row shows the Asimov sensitivity results using 9.3 years of simulated DeepCore data for (a) Earth's mass and (b) correlated density measurement. The ratio $M_\nu$/$M_\oplus$ in (a) represents the scaling factor, where $M_\nu$ is the mass measured by neutrino and $M_\oplus$ is the gravitationally measured mass of Earth. The bottom row compares the Asimov sensitivities of IC86 (15 years) and IC86 (12 years) + IC93 (3 years) for (c) Earth's mass and (d) correlated density measurement.