Gonzalez-Garcia M C, Halzen Francis, Maltoni Michele, Tanaka Hiroyuki K M
Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Departament d'Estructura i Constituents de la Matèria, 647 Diagonal, E-08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Feb 15;100(6):061802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.061802. Epub 2008 Feb 14.
A measurement of the absorption of neutrinos with energies in excess of 10 TeV when traversing the Earth is capable of revealing its density distribution. Unfortunately, the existence of beams with sufficient luminosity for the task has been ruled out by the AMANDA South Pole neutrino telescope. In this Letter we point out that, with the advent of second-generation kilometer-scale neutrino detectors, the idea of studying the internal structure of Earth may be revived using atmospheric neutrinos instead.