CORSIKA Based Simulations of Background in Baikal Experiment

The Baikal experiment aims to register cosmological neutrinos and map the high-energy neutrino sky in the Southern Hemisphere including the region of the Galactic Center. It will use a km3-scale high-energy neutrino telescope located in the southern basin of the Lake Baikal. The northern location of the detector site allows direct observation of the Galactic Center in more than 75 % of the astronomical time. The selection of events from neutrino induced upward going muons, suggests a fairly reliable estimation of the expected background from atmospheric muons. The procedure for simulating background events from atmospheric muons in an array is performed in several steps. The CORSIKA 7.64 was used to simulate the flux of atmospheric muons at the sea level with appropriate chemical composition of the primary cosmic rays. The muon propagation through water and rock to the array level was then simulated with the MUM code. As the last step of the simulation chain, the detector response to the Cherenkov radiation of muons was estimated by taking into account the features of the array measuring systems was performed. The main features of the CORSIKA Monte Carlo code and the next steps of the simulation chain are summarized. The physical models embedded in CORSIKA are described. Application of the full simulation chain is demonstrated.

Flavour Composition and Entropy Increase of Cosmological Neutrinos After Decoherence

We propose that gravitational interactions of cosmic neutrinos with the statistically homogeneous and isotropic fluctuations of space-time lead to decoherence. This working hypothesis, which we describe by means of a Lindblad operator, is applied to the system of two- and three-flavour neutrinos undergoing vacuum oscillations and the consequences are investigated. As a result of this decoherence we find that the neutrino entropy would increase as a function of initial spectral distortions, mixing angles and charge-parity (CP)-violation phase. Subsequently we discuss the chances to discover such an increase observationally (in principle). We also present the expected flavour composition of the cosmic neutrino background after decoherence is completed. The physics of two- or three-flavour oscillation of cosmological neutrinos resembles in many aspects two- or three-level systems in atomic clocks, which were recently proposed by Weinberg for the study of decoherence phenomena.

HIGH ENERGY ASTROPHYSICAL NEUTRINO FLUX AND MODIFIED DISPERSION RELATIONS

Motivated by the interest in searches for violation of CPT invariance, we study its possible effects in the flavor ratios of high-energy neutrinos coming from cosmic accelerators. In particular, we focus on the effect of an energy-independent new physics contribution to the neutrino flavor oscillation phase and explore whether it is observable in future detectors. Such a contribution could be related not only to CPT violation but also to a nonuniversal coupling of neutrinos to a torsion field. We conclude that this extra phase contribution only becomes observable, in the best case, at energies greater than 1016.5 GeV, which is about five orders of magnitude higher than the most energetic cosmological neutrinos to be detected in the near future. Therefore, if these effects are present only in the oscillation phase, they are going to be unobservable, unless a new mechanism or source capable to produce neutrinos of such energy were detected.