Macroscopic approach to the radar echo scatter from high-energy particle cascades

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fast, macroscopic model to predict radar echo signals from high-energy particle cascades in dense media like ice, aiding cosmic ray and neutrino detection efforts.

Contribution

It presents a novel macroscopic, energy-independent model for radar echo prediction from particle cascades, enabling rapid simulations and analysis.

Findings

Model predicts radar echo signatures with good accuracy.

Simulation results agree with observed radar echoes.

Provides a tool for efficient analysis of high-energy particle interactions.

Abstract

To probe the cosmic particle flux at the highest energies, large volumes of dense material like ice have to be monitored. This can be achieved by exploiting the radio signal. In this work, we provide a macroscopic model to predict the radar echo signatures found when a radio signal is reflected from a cosmic-ray or neutrino-induced particle cascade propagating in a dense medium like ice. Its macroscopic nature allows for an energy independent run-time, taking less than 10 s for simulating a single scatter event. As a first application, we discuss basic signal properties and simulate the expected signal for the T-576 beam-test experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. We find good signal strength agreement with the only observed radar echo from a high-energy particle cascade to date.