Speaker
Description
The detection of astrophysical PeV neutrinos by current neutrino observatories has established neutrino astronomy as a powerful tool for exploring the high-energy universe. However, the identification of astrophysical sources remains challenging due to the large background from atmospheric neutrinos. The Tau Air-Shower Mountain-Based Observatory (TAMBO) is a next-generation experiment designed to address this challenge by detecting Earth-skimming tau neutrinos in the 1–100 PeV energy range, where backgrounds are strongly suppressed. The observatory will be deployed on the steep slopes of the Colca Valley in Peru, where tau neutrinos interacting within the surrounding mountains produce tau leptons that decay in the atmosphere, generating extensive air showers detected by an array of up to 5,000 scintillator stations.
This contribution presents the current status of the TAMBO project, with emphasis on its ongoing detector R&D program and the development of its prototype arrays. In particular, we report on the commissioning of TAMBO-4, a four-station scintillator array operating at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, which serves as a testbed for detector instrumentation, calibration, timing synchronization, data acquisition, and air-shower reconstruction. We summarize recent progress in detector construction, electronics development, calibration using cosmic-ray muons and radioactive sources, and detailed CORSIKA and GEANT4 simulations used to optimize detector performance and reconstruction techniques. We also discuss the next phase of the project, including the deployment of TAMBITO, a 100-station demonstrator in the Colca Valley, the projected timeline toward the full observatory, and the unique scientific opportunities that TAMBO will provide for multimessenger astrophysics, neutrino flavor studies, and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model.