Inclined Air Showers and Neutrino Detection

Abstract

The role of inclined showers is reviewed paying some attention to the subject from a historical perspective and how it lead to two different developments, the study of inclined showers due to high energy cosmic ray interactions and the search for high energy neutrinos. The interest of detecting showers of zenith angles above 60° with arrays of particle detectors is discussed pointing out how it complements standard cosmic ray measurements with showers of zeniths below 60° as well as the fluorescence technique. The main characteristics of the search for τ neutrinos interacting in the Earth's crust nearly horizontally are discussed and contrasted to the search of neutrino interactions in the atmosphere.