Mohamad-Ziad Charif - Antares

Figure 3.4: Energy loss of per distance as function of the energy of the muon inrock (on the left) and sea water (on the right).d 2 NdEdx= ᾱ hc sin2 (θ) (3.9)At low muon energies the ionization process dominate, while at high energy(above 1 TeV) we would expect the Bremsstrahlung radiation and lepton pair productionto dominate (Figure 3.4 ).So while the Cherenkov radiation in itself does not contribute much in energydissipation, its continuous nature can help in tracking the muon in water. Themean angle at which the muon is emitted after the neutrino interacts can be smallenough to track the direction of the neutrino albeit with some amount of uncertainty(Figure 3.5 ).3.2 Neutrino telescopesAs shown in the previous section neutrinos can be used to do astronomy. Theconcept revolves around a neutrino (more specifically a ν µ ) interacting in thevicinity of a dense and clear medium such ice or water and producing primarilya muon, this muon can then go on to produce a continuous ray of photons at avery specific angle and spectrum as it moves in the medium due to Cherenkovradiation (section 3.1.4). Now muons can propagate between few meters and few38