A lunar radio experiment with the Parkes radio telescope for the LUNASKA project

TL;DR

This paper details a lunar radio experiment using the Parkes telescope to detect ultra-high-energy particles via nanosecond pulses from the Moon, achieving unprecedented sensitivity but detecting no signals.

Contribution

It introduces a highly sensitive radio detection method with advanced signal processing, lowering the detection threshold and demonstrating its application in lunar particle detection.

Findings

No pulses detected above the threshold in 127 hours of observation.

Achieved sensitivity three times better than previous experiments.

Developed techniques for phase, dispersion, and spectrum compensation.

Abstract

We describe an experiment using the Parkes radio telescope in the 1.2-1.5 GHz frequency range as part of the LUNASKA project, to search for nanosecond-scale pulses from particle cascades in the Moon, which may be triggered by ultra-high-energy astroparticles. Through the combination of a highly sensitive multi-beam radio receiver, a purpose-built backend and sophisticated signal-processing techniques, we achieve sensitivity to radio pulses with a threshold electric field strength of 0.0053 $\mu$V/m/MHz, lower than previous experiments by a factor of three. We observe no pulses in excess of this threshold in observations with an effective duration of 127 hours. The techniques we employ, including compensating for the phase, dispersion and spectrum of the expected pulse, are relevant for future lunar radio experiments.