First-principle calculation of birefringence effects for in-ice radio detection of neutrinos

Abstract

The detection of high-energy neutrinos in the EeV range requires new detection techniques to cope with the small expected flux. The radio detection method, utilizing Askaryan emission, can be used to detect these neutrinos in polar ice. The propagation of the radio pulses has to be modeled carefully to reconstruct the energy, direction, and flavor of the neutrino from the detected radio flashes. Here, we study the effect of birefringence in ice, which splits up the radio pulse into two orthogonal polarization components with slightly different propagation speeds. This provides useful signatures to determine the neutrino energy and is potentially important to determine the neutrino direction to degree precision. We calculated the effect of birefringence from first principles where the only free parameter is the dielectric tensor as a function of position. Our code, for the first time, can propagate full RF waveforms, taking interference due to changing polarization eigenvectors during propagation into account. The model is available open-source through the NuRadioMC framework. We compare our results to in-situ calibration data from the ARA and ARIANNA experiments and find good agreement for the available time delay measurements, improving the predictions significantly compared to previous studies. Finally, the implications and opportunities for neutrino detection are discussed.

References in corpus (19)

• IceCube-Gen2: The Window to the Extreme Universe
• Differential limit on the extremely-high-energy cosmic neutrino flux in the presence of astrophysical background from nine years of IceCube data
• Design and Sensitivity of the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G)
• Probing the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with neutrinos in the EeV energy range using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Constraints on the ultra-high energy cosmic neutrino flux from the fourth flight of ANITA
• The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO): A White Paper
• Limits on the Ultra-High Energy Electron Neutrino Flux from the RICE Experiment
• Astrophysical Sources of High Energy Neutrinos in the IceCube Era
• Constraints on the Diffuse Flux of Ultra-High Energy Neutrinos from Four Years of Askaryan Radio Array Data in Two Stations
• NuRadioReco: A reconstruction framework for radio neutrino detectors
• Measurements and Modeling of Near-Surface Radio Propagation in Glacial Ice and Implications for Neutrino Experiments
• NuRadioMC: Simulating the radio emission of neutrinos from interaction to detector
• Observation of classically `forbidden' electromagnetic wave propagation and implications for neutrino detection
• A search for cosmogenic neutrinos with the ARIANNA test bed using 4.5 years of data
• Modelling ice birefringence and oblique radio wave propagation for neutrino detection at the South Pole
• Probing the angular and polarization reconstruction of the ARIANNA detector at the South Pole
• Long-baseline horizontal radio-frequency transmission through polar ice
• Radio Detection of High Energy Neutrinos in Ice
• RadioPropa - A Modular Raytracer for In-Matter Radio Propagation

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Deep-learning-based reconstruction of the neutrino direction and energy for in-ice radio detectors
• Radio Detection of High Energy Neutrinos in Ice
• In-ice Askaryan Emission from Air Showers: Implications for Radio Neutrino Detectors
• 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