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

Journal Article · · Journal of Instrumentation
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  1. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
  2. Uppsala Univ. (Sweden)
  3. Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States); Moscow Engineering Physics Inst., Moscow (Russian Federation)
  4. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Zeuthen (Germany); Friedrich Alexander Univ., Erlanger (Germany)
  5. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States); Uppsala Univ. (Sweden)
  6. Whittier College, CA (United States)
  7. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  8. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States); Friedrich Alexander Univ., Erlanger (Germany)
  9. Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States)
  10. National Taiwan Univ., Taipei (Taiwan)
+ Show Author Affiliations
The sources of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays, which can have energies up to 1020 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 1016 eV and 1020 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° indicating that the neutrino direction can be determined with good precision if the polarization of the radio-pulse can be well determined. In this work, we obtained a resolution of the polarization vector of 2.7°. Neither measurement show a significant offset relative to expectation.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
German Research Foundation (DFG); MEPhI Academic Excellence Project; National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1713247
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 23034108
Journal Information:
Journal of Instrumentation, Journal Name: Journal of Instrumentation Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 15; ISSN 1748-0221
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Radar absorption, basal reflection, thickness and polarization measurements from the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica journal January 2015
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