Oscillating atmospheric neutrinos:. nu. sub. mu. /. mu. ratio in surface neutrino telescopes

Surface neutrino telescopes have the capability of detecting neutrinos and muons of similar energy. In a {nu}{sub {mu}} oscillation experiment one can therefore tag the {pi} progenitor of the neutrino by detecting the muon produced in the same decay. This eliminates the model dependence of the measurement inevitably associated with the calculation of the primary-cosmic-ray flux. We show that planned surface neutrino telescopes probe the parameter space {Delta}{ital m}{sup 2}{approx gt}10{sup {minus}3} eV{sup 2} and sin{sup 2}2{theta}{approx gt}10{sup {minus}3} using this technique.