Determination of the Neutrino Flavor Ratio at the Astrophysical Source

Abstract

We discuss the reconstruction of neutrino flavor ratios at astrophysical sources through the future neutrino-telescope measurements. Taking the ranges of neutrino mixing parameters $\theta_{ij}$ as those given by the current global fit, we demonstrate by a statistical method that the accuracies in the measurements of energy-independent ratios $R\equiv\phi (\nu_{\mu})/(\phi (\nu_{e})+\phi (\nu_{\tau}))$ and $S\equiv\phi (\nu_e)/\phi (\nu_{\tau})$ among integrated neutrino flux should both be better than 10% in order to distinguish between the pion source and the muon-damped source at the $3 \sigma$ level. The 10% accuracy needed for measuring $R$ and $S$ requires an improved understanding on the background atmospheric neutrino flux to a better than 10% level in the future. We discuss the applicability of our analysis to practical situations that the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux arises from different types of sources and each point source has a neutrino flavor ratio varying with energies. We also discuss the effect of leptonic CP phase on the flavor-ratio reconstruction.