Simulation of combined radio and radar signals at the Radar Echo Telescope for Cosmic Rays

Abstract

To explore neutrino astronomy at high energies (> 10 PeV), the Radar Echo Telescope for Cosmic Rays (RET-CR) was developed to assess the feasibility of a radar technique for detecting particle cascades in ice, serving as a precursor to the Radar Echo Telescope for Neutrinos (RET-N). The main concept of RET-CR is that, as a high-energy cosmic-ray air-shower core propagates into the high-altitude ice sheet, a dense secondary-particle cascade is created, which is very similar to that of an in-ice high-energy neutrino-induced cascade. At RET-CR, the expected signal consists of three distinct components: radio emission from the in-air particle shower, Askaryan radio emission from the secondary in-ice cascade, and the radar signal itself arising from the reflection of the transmitted radio signal from the ionisation trail of the in-ice secondary cascade. In this work, we present the first combined simulation-based package and study aimed at characterising the combined radio and radar signals at the in-ice receivers at RET-CR. We describe the simulation framework and provide a detailed discussion of the salient features of the radio and radar signals, including their spatial footprints and temporal characteristics, as predicted for the shallow in-ice detectors.