Characterization of neutrino signals with radiopulses in dense media through the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal effect

Abstract

We discuss the possibilities of detecting radio pulses from high energy showers in ice, such as those produced by PeV and EeV neutrino interactions. It is shown that the rich radiation pattern structure in the 100 MHz range allows the separation of electromagnetic showers induced by photons or electrons above ϳ100 PeV from those induced by hadrons. This opens up the possibility of measuring the energy fraction transmitted to the electron in a charged current electron neutrino interaction with adequate sampling of the angular distribution of the signal. The radio technique has the potential to complement conventional high energy neutrino detectors with flavor information for neutrino interactions in the EeV range.PACS number͑s͒: 96.40.Pq, 29.40.Ϫn, 95.55.Vj, 96.40.Tv

Calculation methods for radio pulses from high energy showers

“…6 instead of the full simulation (F S) value. † This value corrects the previous conservative estimates used in [18] that quoted instead the ratio of excess projected tracklength to total tracklength as the relevant number (21%).…”

“…The method is attractive because of the good transmission properties of large natural volumes of ice and sand and because much information about the charge distribution in the shower is preserved in the frequency and angular distribution of the pulses. This last property can be used to extract information about shower energy and neutrino flavor [18]. The technique faces a number of technical difficulties however [19] and several attempts are currently being made to test the theoretical predictions [20] and to study the feasibility of the technique in Antarctic ice [21].…”

“…For high energy showers this is unfortunately out of question because of the large number of particles involved and approximations have been specifically deviced to study the radio emission of high energy showers in ice. The calculation of radio pulses from EeV showers has been possible in the one dimensional (1-D) approximation which consists on neglecting both the lateral distribution and the subluminal velocity of shower particles [18,22,23]. All the calculations of radio pulses have been made so far in the Fraunhofer limit.…”

Thinned simulations of extremely energetic showers in dense media for radio applications

“…Tracking all 10 12 particles expected in a single EeV shower is infeasible with current technology. A parameterisation of the emitted radiation in ice at EeV energies was performed in the past exploiting the analogy with diffraction by a single slit by Fourier-transforming an approximate longitudinal and lateral profile of the shower [18][19][20]. Results for other 2 media were obtained using simple scaling relationships, which at TeV energies and for the regolith differ by ∼30% from the results obtained in full Monte Carlo simulations [16].…”

Prospects for the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope to observe radio waves from ultra high energy particles interacting with the Moon

“…For future experiments with increased sensitivity there are proposals [15,16,17] to study this effect with upcoming radio telescopes like the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) and the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), or to use lunar orbiting artificial satellites carrying one or more radio antennas [18,19].…”