Neutrino oscillation tomography of the Earth with KM3NeT-ORCA

Abstract

KM3NeT-ORCA is a water-Cherenkov neutrino detector designed for studying the oscillations of atmospheric neutrinos, with the primary objective of measuring the neutrino mass ordering. Atmospheric neutrinos crossing the Earth undergo matter effects, modifying the pattern of their flavour oscillations. The study of the angular and energy distribution of neutrino events in ORCA can therefore provide tomographic information on the Earth's interior with an independent technique, complementary to the standard geophysics methods. Preliminary estimations based on a full Monte Carlo simulation of the detector response show that after ten years of operation the electron density can be measured with a precision of 3-5% in the mantle and 7-10% in the outer core - depending on the mass ordering.