nuSpaceSim: A Comprehensive Simulation Package for Modeling the Sensitivity of Space-based Experiments to Cosmic Neutrinos using the Optical and Radio Signals from Extensive Air Showers

Neutrinos provide a probe of the hadronic processes and at high energies provide a unique window deep into their astrophysical sources. Above ~ PeV, tau neutrino charged-current interactions within the Earth can provide a substantial flux of tau-leptons which then decay to form upward-moving extensive air showers (EAS). Using the Earth as a neutrino target and the atmosphere as the signal generator effectively forms a detector with >> gigaton mass. We have developed an end-to-end simulation, nuSpaceSim, which models all the relevant physical processes in the simulation chain. These include the modeling of neutrino interactions inside the Earth that generate leptons, propagating the leptons through the Earth into the atmosphere, modeling the tau-lepton decays, forming composite EAS, generating the air optical Cherenkov and radio signals, modeling their propagation and attenuation through the atmosphere (including the effects of clouds), and modeling the response of the detectors where the altitude and properties of the detectors are provided by the user. In this talk, the nuSpaceSim software, physics modeling, and the cosmic neutrino measurement capabilities of example sub-orbital and space-based experimental configurations will be presented.