Performance of the ARIANNA Hexagonal Radio Array

TL;DR

The ARIANNA Hexagonal Radio Array on Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf successfully collected data, demonstrating a new radio signal reconstruction method with sub-degree accuracy, and effectively distinguishing neutrino signals from background noise.

Contribution

This paper presents the installation, reliable operation, and data analysis of the ARIANNA HRA, including a novel radio signal reconstruction technique and background rejection method.

Findings

Reconstruction resolution better than one degree.

85.4% efficiency in identifying simulated neutrino events.

All stations operated reliably during the 2014-2015 season.

Abstract

Installation of the ARIANNA Hexagonal Radio Array (HRA) on the Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica has been completed. This detector serves as a pilot program to the ARIANNA neutrino telescope, which aims to measure the diffuse flux of very high energy neutrinos by observing the radio pulse generated by neutrino-induced charged particle showers in the ice. All HRA stations ran reliably and took data during the entire 2014-2015 austral summer season. A new radio signal direction reconstruction procedure is described, and is observed to have a resolution better than a degree. The reconstruction is used in a preliminary search for potential neutrino candidate events in the data from one of the newly installed detector stations. Three cuts are used to separate radio backgrounds from neutrino signals. The cuts are found to filter out all data recorded by the station during the season while preserving 85.4% of simulated neutrino events that trigger the station. This efficiency is similar to that found in analyses of previous HRA data taking seasons.