A high-precision interpolation method for pulsed radio signals from cosmic-ray air showers

Abstract

Analysis of radio signals from cosmic-ray induced air showers has been shown to be a reliable method to extract shower parameters such as primary energy and depth of shower maximum. The required detailed air shower simulations take 1 to 3 days of CPU time per shower for a few hundred antennas. With nearly $60,000$ antennas envisioned to be used for air shower studies at the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), simulating all of these would come at unreasonable costs. We present an interpolation algorithm to reconstruct the full pulse time series at any position in the radio footprint, from a set of antennas simulated on a polar grid. Relying on Fourier series representations and cubic splines, it significantly improves on existing linear methods. We show that simulating about 200 antennas is sufficient for high-precision analysis in the SKA era, including e.g. interferometry which relies on accurate pulse shapes and timings. We therefore propose the interpolation algorithm and its implementation as a useful extension of radio simulation codes, to limit computational effort while retaining accuracy.

21 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in JINST (Journal of Instrumentation)

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• Array Programming with NumPy
• A method for high precision reconstruction of air shower Xmax using two-dimensional radio intensity profiles
• Radio detection of air showers with the ARIANNA experiment on the Ross Ice Shelf
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Simulation of radio signals from cosmic-ray cascades in air and ice as observed by in-ice Askaryan radio detectors
• A LOFAR-style reconstruction of cosmic-ray air showers with SKA-Low
• Proof of principle for template synthesis approach for the radio emission from vertical extensive air showers
• A Bayesian Method for Air-Shower Reconstruction using Information Field Theory