Radar Absorption, Basal Reflection, Thickness, and Polarization Measurements from the Ross Ice Shelf

Abstract

Radio-glaciological parameters from Moore's Bay, in the Ross Ice Shelf, have been measured. The thickness of the ice shelf in Moore's Bay was measured from reflection times of radio-frequency pulses propagating vertically through the shelf and reflecting from the ocean, and is found to be $576\pm 8$ m. Introducing a baseline of 543$\pm$7 m between radio transmitter and receiver allowed the computation of the basal reflection coefficient, $R$, separately from englacial loss. The depth-averaged attenuation length of the ice column, $<L>$ is shown to depend linearly on frequency. The best fit (95% confidence level) is $<L(\nu )>=(460\pm 20)-(180\pm 40)\nu$ m (20 dB/km), for the frequencies $\nu =$[0.100-0.850] GHz, assuming no reflection loss. The mean electric-field reflection coefficient is $\sqrt{R}=0.82\pm 0.07$ (-1.7 dB reflection loss) across [0.100-0.850] GHz, and is used to correct the attenuation length. Finally, the reflected power rotated into the orthogonal antenna polarization is less than 5% below 0.400 GHz, compatible with air propagation. The results imply that Moore's Bay serves as an appropriate medium for the ARIANNA high energy neutrino detector.

10 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Evidence for High-Energy Extraterrestrial Neutrinos at the IceCube Detector
• The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Detector Design, Performance, and Sensitivity for 2006-2007 Balloon Flight
• Updated Results from the RICE Experiment and Future Prospects for Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Detection at the South Pole
• ARIANNA: A New Concept for UHE Neutrino Detection
• A prototype station for ARIANNA: a detector for cosmic neutrinos
• Ross Ice Shelf in situ radio-frequency ice attenuation
• In situ radioglaciological measurements near Taylor Dome, Antarctica and implications for UHE neutrino astronomy

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Radio detection of air showers with the ARIANNA experiment on the Ross Ice Shelf
• Observation of classically `forbidden' electromagnetic wave propagation and implications for neutrino detection
• Development Toward a Ground-Based Interferometric Phased Array for Radio Detection of High Energy Neutrinos
• Reconstructing non-repeating radio pulses with Information Field Theory
• Improving sensitivity of the ARIANNA detector by rejecting thermal noise with deep learning
• The Next-Generation Radio Neutrino Observatory -- Multi-Messenger Neutrino Astrophysics at Extreme Energies
• Performance of the ARIANNA Hexagonal Radio Array