Atmospheric Neutrinos as a Tool for Exploring the Earth’s Inner Parts

Abstract

Investigation of the Earth’s inner parts requires developing new methods. It is well known that atmospheric neutrinos traverse the Earth, undergoing virtually no interaction. The change in the neutrino flux is due exclusively to neutrino oscillations, which are enhanced by the effect of Earth’s matter. At the present time, there are two projects outside Russia (PINGU and ORCA) that are aimed at detecting atmospheric neutrinos that traversed the Earth, which are supposed to be used for purposes of Earth’s tomography. The creation of a large neutrino detector on the basis of a liquid scintillator is planned at the BaksanNeutrino Observatory (Institute for Nuclear Research, Russian Academy of Sciences) in the North Caucasus. After testing this detector, there will arise the possibility of employing it as part of the worldwide network of neutrino detectors for studying the Earth’s inner parts.