TAMBO (Tau Air Shower Mountain-Based Observatory) is a proposed neutrino observatory to be located in the deep Colca Valley in Peru, designed to observe high-energy tau neutrinos and their direction by detecting air showers in one side of the mountains of the valley with an array of plastic scintillator detectors. Earth-skimming tau neutrinos, coming through the Earth from slightly below the horizon, interact within the dense rock of the mountain producing a tau among other particles. The tau continues along the same trajectory decaying in a particle shower in the air of the valley, which is detected in the opposite wall of the mountains. Its the main science cases are the measurement of the astrophysical diffuse tau-neutrino spectrum in the energy regime between high-energy astrophysical neutrino measurements by IceCube and those of next-generation radio detectors, the detection of high-energy neutrino sources and the study of fundamental physics (quantum-gravity-motivated parameter space, search for annihilation or decay of dark matter to neutrinos, heavy neutral leptons).
The PUCP HEP Group is an official member of the TAMBO collaboration. Its contributions include the development of a DAQ setup for timing, construction of plastic scintillator prototype detectors and cosmic ray background and tau simulations. Several undergrad students are involved in the project.
Estado DGI: En proceso