Study of TeV neutrinos with upward showering muons in Super-Kamiokande

Abstract

A subset of neutrino-induced upward through-going muons in the Super-Kamiokande detector consists of high-energy muons which lose energy through radiative processes such as bremsstrahlung, e(+)e(-) pair production and photonuclear interactions. These upward showering muons comprise an event sample whose mean parent neutrino energy is approximately 1 TeV. We show that the zenith angle distribution of upward showering muons is consistent with negligible distortion due to neutrino oscillations, as expected of such a high-energy neutrino sample. We present astronomical searches using these high-energy events, such as those from WIMP annihilations in the Sun, Earth and Galactic Center, some suspected point sources, as well as searches for diffuse flux from the interstellar medium. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.