Seafloor Topography Enhances KM3NeT Sensitivity to ANITA-like Events

Abstract

In this article, we introduce the concept of topographic enhancement in the context of ultra-high-energy neutrino detection by underwater neutrino telescopes. We demonstrate that the local topography around KM3NeT/ARCA can increase the detection efficiency in scenarios involving long-lived particles by up to a factor of $\sim 3$ due to the presence of an underwater mountain range in the direction of Malta. We consider a simplified model-independent approach that parametrizes the new physics able to generate both track-like and cascade-like signals in neutrino telescopes. When explaining the KM3-230213A event with a diffuse dark flux hypothesis, including its azimuthal direction--in addition to the zenith angle--provides additional constraints on the parameter space. In this effective model, the observations by KM3NeT and ANITA-IV can be simultaneously explained, but a global tension with the lack of a corresponding detection in IceCube remains at 2.7 sigma. This work underscores the importance of incorporating topographic effects in the design and optimization of next-generation neutrino telescopes, as is done in the context of mountain-based detectors such as TAMBO. We present a numerical code which can be used to easily extend this topographical analysis to other experiments.