Prospects for GMRT to Observe Radio Waves from UHE Particles Interacting with the Moon

Abstract

Ultra high energy (UHE) particles of cosmic origin impact the lunar regolith and produce radio signals through Askaryan effect, signals that can be detected by Earth based radio telescopes. We calculate the expected sensitivity for observation of such events at the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), both for UHE cosmic rays (CR) and UHE neutrino interactions. We find that for 30 days of observation time a significant number of detectable events is expected above $10^{20}$ eV for UHECR or neutrino fluxes close to the current limits. Null detection over a period of 30 days will lower the experimental bounds on UHE particle fluxes by magnitudes competitive to both present and future experiments at the very highest energies.

arXiv comment21 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (16)

• High Energy Neutrinos from Astrophysical Sources: An Upper Bound
• Neutrino Interactions at Ultrahigh Energies
• Ultrahigh energy neutrino scattering onto relic light neutrinos in galactic halo as a possible source of highest energy extragalactic cosmic rays
• Cosmic Ray Neutrino Annihilation on Relic Neutrinos Revisited: A Mechanism for Generating Air Showers above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin Cut-off
• Observation of the Askaryan Effect: Coherent Microwave Cherenkov Emission from Charge Asymmetry in High Energy Particle Cascades
• Experimental Limit on the Cosmic Diffuse Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Flux
• RICE Limits on the Diffuse Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Flux
• Constraints on Cosmic Neutrino Fluxes from the ANITA Experiment
• FORTE satellite constraints on ultra-high energy cosmic particle fluxes
• Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Fluxes: New Constraints and Implications
• Optimal Radio Window for the Detection of Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays and Neutrinos off the Moon
• Coherent radio pulses from showers in different media: A unified parameterization
• Prospects for radio detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and neutrinos
• Limit on UHE Neutrino Flux from the Parkes Lunar Radio Cherenkov Experiment
• Prospects for Lunar Satellite Detection of Radio Pulses from Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos Interacting with the Moon
• Prospects for radio detection of extremely high energy cosmic rays and neutrinos in the Moon