Probing Supersymmetry with Cosmogenic Neutrinos

Abstract

Neutrino telescopes have the potential to detect quasi-stable supersymmetric staus predicted by some supersymmetric models. A study of the signal for the detection of staus produced in interactions of cosmogenic neutrinos is presented. The detection depends on the stau electromagnetic energy loss and weak interactions. The results for the weak interaction contribution to the energy loss of high energy staus as they pass through rock is presented. The neutral current weak interaction contribution is much smaller than photonuclear energy loss, however, the charged current contribution may become the dominant process for energies above 10^9GeV. As a consequence, the stau range may be reduced above 10^9 GeV as compared to the range neglecting weak interactions.A detailed analysis of the incoming cosmogenic neutrino flux, neutrino attenuation, stau production, and stau energy loss shows that there is an optimal nadir angle for which the stau signal is a factor of several hundred larger than the muon signal. A discussion is presented of how one could potentially eliminate the muon background by considering the energy loss of muons in the detector. The results for the showers produced by weak interactions of staus that reach the detector is presented and compared to the showers produced by neutrinos.