R&D studies for the development of a compact transmitter able to mimic the acoustic signature of a UHE neutrino interaction

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel, compact acoustic transmitter design using parametric source technology to mimic ultra-high-energy neutrino signals, aiming to improve calibration of acoustic neutrino telescopes.

Contribution

It introduces a new compact transmitter design employing parametric acoustic sources with cylindrical symmetry for easier deployment and realistic neutrino-like signal generation.

Findings

Successful demonstration of a compact, directive acoustic transmitter

Ability to generate bipolar pulses with 'pancake' directivity

Potential for easier calibration of neutrino detectors

Abstract

Calibration of acoustic neutrino telescopes with neutrino-like signals is an essential aspect to evaluate the feasibility of the technique and to know the efficiency of the detectors. However, it is not straightforward to have acoustic transmitters that, on one hand, are able to mimic the signature of a UHE neutrino interaction, that is, a bipolar acoustic pulse with the 'pancake' directivity, and, on the other hand, fulfill practical issues such as ease of deployment and operation. This is a non-trivial problem since it requires directive transducer with cylindrical symmetry for a broadband frequency range. Classical solutions using linear arrays of acoustic transducers result in long arrays with many elements, which increase the cost and the complexity for deployment and operation. In this paper we present the extension of our previous R&D studies using the parametric acoustic source technique by dealing with the cylindrical symmetry, and demonstrating that it is possible to use this technique for having a compact solution that could be much more easily included in neutrino telescope infrastructures or used in specific sea campaigns for calibration.