Probing the angular and polarization reconstruction of the ARIANNA detector at the South Pole

Abstract

The sources of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays, which can have energies up to 10^20 eV, remain a mystery. UHE neutrinos may provide important clues to understanding the nature of cosmic-ray sources. ARIANNA aims to detect UHE neutrinos via radio (Askaryan) emission from particle showers when a neutrino interacts with ice, which is an efficient method for neutrinos with energies between 10^16 eV and 10^20 eV. The ARIANNA radio detectors are located in Antarctic ice just beneath the surface. Neutrino observation requires that radio pulses propagate to the antennas at the surface with minimum distortion by the ice and firn medium. Using the residual hole from the South Pole Ice Core Project, radio pulses were emitted from a transmitter located up to 1.7 km below the snow surface. By measuring these signals with an ARIANNA surface station, the angular and polarization reconstruction abilities are quantified, which are required to measure the direction of the neutrino. After deconvolving the raw signals for the detector response and attenuation from propagation through the ice, the signal pulses show no significant distortion and agree with a reference measurement of the emitter made in an anechoic chamber. Furthermore, the signal pulses reveal no significant birefringence for our tested geometry of mostly vertical ice propagation. The origin of the transmitted radio pulse was measured with an angular resolution of 0.37 degrees indicating that the neutrino direction can be determined with good precision if the polarization of the radio-pulse can be well determined. In the present study we obtained a resolution of the polarization vector of 2.7 degrees. Neither measurement show a significant offset relative to expectation.

References in corpus (3)

• Observations of the Askaryan Effect in Ice
• NuRadioReco: A reconstruction framework for radio neutrino detectors
• Time Domain Response of the ARIANNA Detector

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• Detector Requirements for Model-Independent Measurements of Ultrahigh Energy Neutrino Cross Sections
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• Impact of biaxial birefringence in polar ice at radio frequencies on signal polarizations in ultra-high energy neutrino detection
• First-principle calculation of birefringence effects for in-ice radio detection of neutrinos
• Measuring the Polarization Reconstruction Resolution of the ARIANNA Neutrino Detector with Cosmic Rays
• An improved trigger for Askaryan radio detectors
• The flavor composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrinos: measurement forecasts for in-ice radio-based EeV neutrino telescopes
• Simulation of radio signals from cosmic-ray cascades in air and ice as observed by in-ice Askaryan radio detectors
• Solar flare observations with the Radio Neutrino Observatory Greenland (RNO-G)
• Simulation study for an in-situ calibration system for the measurement of the snow accumulation and the index-of-refraction profile for radio neutrino detectors
• Complex Analysis of Askaryan Radiation: A Fully Analytic Model in the Time-Domain
• Complex Analysis of Askaryan Radiation: UHE-$\nu$ Identification and Reconstruction using the Hilbert Envelope of Observed Signals