Neutrino backgrounds in the Kolar Gold Field nucleon decay experiment

The neutrino events recorded in the Kolar Gold Field Nucleon Decay detector are analysed here. It is shown that there is good agreement between the observations and the estimates based on the intensities of atmospheric neutrinos and interaction cross-sections of neutrinos available from accelerator experiments. In the context of the search for proton decay, we show that the low energy (<2 GeV) neutrino events, which would provide the main background, are suppressed at thekgf site since it is situated near geomagnetic equator, where the geomagnetic cut-off rigidities are high. A comparison of the predicted characteristics ofv-induced events with thekgf observations shows that, within the statistical accuracy of the present data, the signal due to nucleon decay stands out distinctly within thev-induced background.