A 3-d simulation of the atmospheric neutrinos

Abstract

The first AMS flight in June 1998 on board of the space shuttle Discovery at an altitude of approximately 380 km unveiled unexpected features of the cosmic rays spectra below the Earth geomagnetic cut-off. In addition to a secondary flux of particles at all latitude, a ring of high energy particles (up to 6 GeV) and an anomalous ratio e+/e- as high as 4 was observed near the geomagnetic equator. This paper describes a simulation of the interaction of primary cosmic rays with atmosphere in which the effect of the Earth magnetic field is included . Using the GEANT3 package for the tracking of particles with the GFLUKA associated package for the physics of interactions, this simulation reproduces quite well the AMS experimental results and the CAPRICE muon data at ground level. The predictions of this model for the flux of atmospheric neutrino are compared with the Super-Kamiokande results and with the results of other atmospheric neutrino models.