Notes on neutrino tomography

Consideration is given to the use of neutrino tomography, which involves the measurement of the attenuation of neutrino beams of different directions during their passage through a celestial body, to investigate the density distributions of celestial bodies. The optimal energy of the neutrino beam at which the measurement system is most sensitive is determined as a function of the mass and radius of the celestial body, and values of this energy are presented for neutron stars, white dwarfs, red giants, the sun and the earth. It is pointed out that, as a rule, neutrino tomography operates with a beam energy on the order of a few TeV, which is accessible to the next generation of particle accelerators. The applicability of the technique to the earth, for which an energy of 10 TeV is required, is then discussed, and it is shown that with a sufficiently long exposure time, the neutrino statistics required for the desired accuracy may be attained by both present and next-generation accelerators.