Unusual Near-Horizon Cosmic-Ray-like Events Observed by ANITA-IV

Abstract

ANITA's fourth long-duration balloon flight in 2016 detected 29 cosmic-ray (CR)-like events on a background of 0.37 þ0.27 −0.17 anthropogenic events. CRs are mainly seen in reflection off the Antarctic ice sheets, creating a phase-inverted waveform polarity. However, four of the below-horizon CR-like events show anomalous noninverted polarity, a p ¼ 5.3 × 10 −4 chance if due to background. All anomalous events are from locations near the horizon; ANITA-IV observed no steeply upcoming anomalous events similar to the two such events seen in prior flights.

Multi-Modal Clustering Events Observed by Horizon-10T and Axion Quark Nuggets

“…As we mentioned above, our main arguments leading to the identification of the MMEs with the AQN events are not based on an order of magnitude estimate of the frequency of appearance (16). Rather, our main arguments are based on specific qualitative features (formulated as puzzles) and which cannot be explained in terms of the conventional CR air showers.…”

“…The final example we want to mention here is the observation by ANITA [14][15][16] of two anomalous events with noninverted polarity. These two events had been identified as the Earth emergent upward going CR-like events with exit angles of −27 0 and −35 0 relative to the horizon.…”

“…As a result we consider the Formula ( 16) as an order of magnitude estimate at the very best. However, our main arguments of the identification of the MMEs with the AQN events are not based on the estimate (16). We present this estimate here exclusively for illustrative purposes.…”

“…This similarity hints on a common origin for all these phenomena. Therefore, if one normalize N to the observed ANITA anomalous events (assuming that all three phenomena originated from the same AQN based physics) one arrives to correct order of magnitude estimate as the suppression factor ∼0.1 is approximately the same for all three phenomena estimated for the mysterious TA bursts in [9], the ANITA anomalous events in [13], and Multi-Modal Events estimated in (16). The main uncertainty related to the basic normalization of the flux Φ cancels out if such relative ratios are considered.…”

“…First, it has been argued in [9,10] that the Telescope Array (TA) "mysterious bursts" [11,12] can be naturally interpreted as the AQN events. Secondly, it has been also argued in [13] that the Antarctic Impulse Transient Antenna (ANITA) observation [14][15][16] of two anomalous events with noninverted polarity might be also a consequence of the AQN annihilation events. Important comment here that in all those cases the basic parameters of the AQN model remain the same as they have been fixed long ago from dramatically different observations in a very different context.…”