Abstract
Extremely high energy ( ) cosmic neutrino beams initiate high energy particle cascades in the background of relic neutrinos from the big bang. We perform numerical calculations to show that such cascades could contribute more than 10% to the observed cosmic ray flux above if neutrinos have masses. The required intensity of primary neutrinos could be consistent with astrophysical models for their production if the maximum neutrino energy reaches to and the massive neutrino dark matter is locally clustered. Future observations of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays will lead to an indirect but practical search for neutrino dark matter.
- Received 14 August 1998
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.5505
©1998 American Physical Society