Search for prompt neutrinos with AMANDA-II [Elektronische Ressource] / Sara Rebecca Gozzini

Search for Prompt Neutrinoswith AMANDA-IIDissertation zur Erlangung des Grades,,Doktor der Naturwissenschaften”am Fachbereich Physikder Johannes Gutenberg-Universit¨at MainzSara Rebecca Gozzinigeboren in Ceva CN, ItalienMainz, 11. September 2008AbstractThe investigation performed in this work aims to identify and disentangle thesignal of prompt neutrinos from the inclusive atmospheric spectrum. We haveanalysed data recorded in the years 2000-2003 by the AMANDA-II detectorat the geographical South Pole. After a tight event selection, our sample is3composed of about 4¢10 atmospheric neutrinos.Prompt neutrinos are decay products of heavy quark hadrons, whichare produced in the collision of a cosmic ray particle with a nucleon in theatmosphere. The technique used to recognise prompt neutrinos is based ona simulated information of their energy spectrum, which appears harder thanthat of the conventional component from light quarks. Models accountingfor different hadron production and decay schemes have been included in aMonte Carlo simulation and convoluted with the detector response, in orderto reproduce the different spectra.The background of conventional events has been described with the Bar-tol 2006 tables. The energy spectrum of our data has been reconstructedthrough a numerical unfolding algorithm.