Trinity: an imaging air Cherenkov telescope to search for Ultra-High-Energy neutrinos.

Abstract

Earth-skimming neutrinos are those which travel through the Earth's crust at a shallow angle. For Ultra-High-Energy (E > 1 PeV; UHE) earth-skimming tau neutrinos, there is a high-probability that the tau lepton created by a neutrino-Earth interaction will emerge from the ground before it decays. When this happens, the decaying tau particle initiates an air shower of relativistic sub-atomic particles which emit Cherenkov radiation. To observe this Cherenkov radiation, we propose the Trinity Observatory. Using a novel optical structure design, pointing at the horizon, Trinity will observe the Cherenkov radiation from upward-going neutrino-induced air showers. Being sensitive to neutrinos in the 1 − 10 4 PeV energy range, Trinity's expected sensitivity will have a unique role to play filling the gap between the observed astrophysical neutrinos observed by IceCube and the expected sensitivity of radio UHE neutrino detectors.

Probing New Physics at Future Tau Neutrino Telescopes

“…Trinity will deploy the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope on the mountaintop with an altitude of ∼ 2 km [104][105][106][107]. One may think of Trinity as a ground analogue of POEMMA, so most of the considerations to derive neutrino events at POEMMA can apply directly to Trinity after modifying some of the experimental parameters.…”

“…A schematic diagram for the working principles of tau neutrino telescopes is given in Fig. 1, where we have chosen three representative tau neutrino telescopes GRAND [102,103], Trinity [104][105][106][107] and POEMMA [108].…”

“…The details of these experimental projects are collected in Table1. The sensitivity curves are reproduced or converted from the original proposals[102][103][104][105][106][107][108][133][134][135][136][137][138][139][140][141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148] for 90% confidence level, i.e., to collect 2.44 events within a decade of neutrino energy. The cosmogenic neutrino flux is taken from Ref [117].…”

Rapporteur ICRC 2021: Neutrinos and Muons

“…Rapporteur: Neutrinos and Muons Anna Nelles A demonstrator Cherenkov telescope for Trinity has been funded [10,11], which will look at the rim of the Earth from a mountain top for upcoming stemming from -interactions. The Cherenkov technique has the potential to bridge the energy gap between optical in air or water arrays and the radio technique.…”

“…Another particle, which can be searched for using luminescence, is a magnetic monopole. These are predicted by Grand-Unified theories and others to be particles carrying at least one isolated magnetic charge [10]. Similar to the Q-balls these Big Bang relics are assumed to be very massive, however monopoles can be accelerated to relativistic speeds by inter-galactic magnetic fields.…”