On the feasibility of RADAR detection of high-energy neutrino-induced showers in ice

Abstract

In this article we try to answer the question whether the radar detection technique can be used for the detection of high-energy-neutrino induced particle cascades in ice. A high-energy neutrino interacting in ice will induce a particle cascade, also referred to as a particle shower, moving at approximately the speed of light. Passing through, the cascade will ionize the medium, leaving behind a plasma tube. The different properties of the plasma-tube, such as its lifetime, size and the charge-density will be used to obtain an estimate if it is possible to detect this tube by means of the radar detection technique. Next to the ionization electrons a second plasma due to mobile protons induced by the particle cascade is discussed. An energy threshold for the cascade inducing particle of 4 PeV for the electron plasma, and 20 PeV for the proton plasma is obtained. This allows the radar detection technique, if successful, to cover the energy-gap between several PeV and a few EeV in the currently operating neutrino detectors, where on the low side IceCube runs out of events, and on the high side the Askaryan radio detectors begin to have large effective volumes.

References in corpus (3)

• Evidence for High-Energy Extraterrestrial Neutrinos at the IceCube Detector
• New Limits on the Ultra-high Energy Cosmic Neutrino Flux from the ANITA Experiment
• A new limit on the Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic-Ray flux with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Radio detection of Cosmic-Ray Air Showers and High-Energy Neutrinos
• Observation of Radar Echoes From High-Energy Particle Cascades
• Simulation of in-ice cosmic ray air shower induced particle cascades
• Modeling in-ice radio propagation with parabolic equation methods
• Feasibility of radar detection of extensive air showers
• Radiowave Detection of Ultra-High Energy Neutrinos and Cosmic Rays
• Suggestion of Coherent Radio Reflections from an Electron-Beam Induced Particle Cascade
• The Radar Echo Telescope for Cosmic Rays: Pathfinder Experiment for a Next-Generation Neutrino Observatory
• Coherent radio emission from the electron beam sudden appearance
• Particle-level model for radar based detection of high-energy neutrino cascades
• Weak signal extraction using matrix decomposition, with application to ultra high energy neutrino detection
• Macroscopic approach to the radar echo scatter from high-energy particle cascades