A Radio Air-Shower Test Array (RASTA) for IceCube

TL;DR

The paper proposes extending IceCube with a radio antenna array to improve cosmic ray and neutrino detection, enabling better background vetoing, composition analysis, and enhanced scientific capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces the RASTA project, a dedicated radio array at the South Pole, to complement IceCube and improve air-shower detection through geosynchrotron emission measurements.

Findings

Radio detection of air-showers is viable and cost-effective.

Combining surface and underground measurements enhances primary flux analysis.

The RASTA project aims to expand IceCube's scientific potential.

Abstract

In this paper we explore the possibility to complement the cosmic ray physics program of the IceCube observatory with an extended surface array of radio antennas. The combination of air-shower sampling on the surface and muon calorimetry underground offers significant scientifc potential: the neutrino sensitivity above the horizon can be enhanced by vetoing air-showers on the ground, photon-induced air-showers can be identifed by their small muon component and the coincident measurement of the particle density on the surface and the muon component gives useful information on the composition of the primary flux. All of these analyses are pursued with the existing IceTop array. However, the IceTop footprint is small compared to the acceptance of the InIce sensor array, which severely limits the solid angle for coincident measurements, calling for an extended surface air-shower detector. As demonstrated by the LOPES experiment, measuring air-showers through their geosynchrotron emission has become a viable and cost-efficient method. The science case for the RASTA project - a dedicated radio array seeking to exploit this method at the South Pole - is presented.