A prototype station for ARIANNA: a detector for cosmic neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper presents the design, deployment, and initial performance results of a prototype station for ARIANNA, a proposed Antarctic detector for ultra-high energy cosmic neutrinos, utilizing radio Cherenkov emission detection.

Contribution

It introduces a prototype station for ARIANNA, demonstrating its design, deployment process, and initial performance metrics in Antarctic ice.

Findings

Ice shelf thickness measured at 572 +/- 6 m

Prototype station successfully deployed and operational

Initial performance data collected from the prototype

Abstract

The Antarctic Ross Iceshelf Antenna Neutrino Array (ARIANNA) is a proposed detector for ultra-high energy astrophysical neutrinos. It will detect coherent radio Cherenkov emission from the particle showers produced by neutrinos with energies above about 10^17 eV. ARIANNA will be built on the Ross Ice Shelf just off the coast of Antarctica, where it will eventually cover about 900 km^2 in surface area. There, the ice-water interface below the shelf reflects radio waves, giving ARIANNA sensitivity to downward going neutrinos and improving its sensitivity to horizontally incident neutrinos. ARIANNA detector stations will each contain 4-8 antennas which search for brief pulses of 50 MHz to 1 GHz radio emission from neutrino interactions. We describe a prototype station for ARIANNA which was deployed in Moore's Bay on the Ross Ice Shelf in December 2009, discuss the design and deployment, and present some initial figures on performance. The ice shelf thickness was measured to be 572 +/- 6 m at the deployment site.