Detection of atmospheric neutrinos and relativistic nuclear structure effects

Abstract

Neutrino-nucleus cross sections for the detection of atmospheric neutrinos are calculated in relativistic impulse and random phase approximations. Pion production is estimated via inclusive Δ-hole nuclear excitations. The number of pion events can confuse the identification of the neutrino flavor. As a further source of pions we calculate coherent pion production (where the nucleus remains in the ground state). We examine how these nuclear structure effects influence atmospheric neutrino experiments and study possible improvements in the present detector simulations.