Measuring Changes in the Atmospheric Neutrino Rate over Gigayear Timescales

• Measuring the cosmic ray flux over timescales comparable to the age of the Solar System, similar to 4.5 Gyr, could provide a new window on the history of the Earth, the Solar System, and even our Galaxy. We present a technique to indirectly measure the rate of cosmic rays as a function of time using the imprints of atmospheric neutrinos in paleo-detectors, natural minerals that record damage tracks from nuclear recoils. Minerals commonly found on Earth are less than or similar to 1 Gyr old, providing the ability to look back across cosmic ray history on timescales of the same order as the age of the Solar System. Given a collection of differently aged samples dated with reasonable accuracy, this technique is particularly well-suited to measuring historical changes in the cosmic ray flux at Earth and is broadly applicable in astrophysics and geophysics.

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NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

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