Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2018
Volume 63, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, April 14–17, 2018; Columbus, Ohio
Session U17: Ultra High-energy Neutrinos |
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Sponsoring Units: DAP DPF Chair: Stephanie Wissel, Cal Poly Room: B234-235 |
Monday, April 16, 2018 3:30PM - 3:42PM |
U17.00001: Results from the third flight of ANITA Oindree Banerjee Ultra-high-energy (\textgreater 10$^{\mathrm{18}}$ eV) neutrinos remain undiscovered in this era of rapid growth in multi-messenger astronomy. These neutral and weakly-interacting particles can travel cosmic distances without attenuation and point straight back to their source, rendering them promising messengers. Detection of these elusive particles requires an enormous instrumented volume of a dielectric material. Use of radio Cherenkov method enables this at a relatively low cost. The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) is a NASA-funded long-duration balloon experiment that is launched from near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, to fly over the continent in roughly circular orbits in the stratosphere for a month. ANITA looks for the radio signature from ultra-high-energy neutrino interaction in the ice below. There have been four flights of ANITA so far. I will show results from the third flight of ANITA. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 3:42PM - 3:54PM |
U17.00002: Tau neutrino signals at POEMMA Mary Hall Reno Satellite- and balloon-based detectors have the potential to discover neutrino signals originating from cosmic ray interactions with background photons as they travel from the highest energy sources. The discovery of these cosmogenic neutrinos will begin a new era of astroparticle physics. The POEMMA (Probe of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) mission is being designed with the detection of the flux of cosmogenic tau neutrinos as one goal. With a two-satellite configuration of Cherenkov detectors targeted around the limb of the Earth, POEMMA will use the Earth as a neutrino converter. A comprehensive evaluation of how cosmic ray models and particle physics inputs to the tau neutrino interaction, tau lepton propagation, and tau decay in the atmosphere affect the rate of tau-neutrino induced air showers from Earth-skimming cosmogenic tau neutrinos will be presented. The focus will be on angles and altitudes important for POEMMA. Other detection configurations will also be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 3:54PM - 4:06PM |
U17.00003: Trinity: An instrument to detect cosmogenic neutrinos with the Earth skimming technique Nepomuk Otte The predictions of the cosmogenic-neutrino flux at $10^9$ GeV depend on the composition of the primary flux of cosmic-rays above $10^{10}$ GeV, which is a long standig question. It is, therefore, no surprise that the hunt to detect the first cosmogenic neutrino is a hot topic in astroparticle physics. But pushing the experimental sensitivity into the predicted flux region is a challenge. A major obstacle is to obtain a large enough acceptance while keeping costs of experiments at reasonable levels. I have performed a conceptual design study of a dedicated array of Cherenkov telescopes that uses the Earth skimming technique to detect tau neutrinos. The studies show that a fairly small Cherenkov telescope system is sufficient to reach sensitivities that are competitive with other proposed neutrino experiments in the same energy range, like ARA and ARIANNA, and outperforms them in terms of costs. In this talk I present details of the design study and discuss the proposed array of Cherenkov telescopes, which I named Trinity. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:06PM - 4:18PM |
U17.00004: Cumulative Neutrino and Gamma-Ray Backgrounds from Halo and Galaxy Mergers Chengchao Yuan, Peter Meszaros, Kohta Murase, Donghui Jeong The merger of dark matter halos and the gaseous structures embedded in them results in strong shocks that are capable of accelerating cosmic rays (CRs) to $\sim10~\rm PeV$. In this work, we study the contributions of these halo mergers to the diffuse neutrino flux and to the non-blazar portion of the $\gamma$-ray background. We formulate the redshift dependence of the shock parameters over the dark matter halo distribution up to a redshift $z=10$. We find that high-redshift mergers contribute a significant amount of the cosmic-ray energy luminosity density, and the resulting neutrino spectra could explain a large part of the observed diffuse neutrino flux above 0.1 PeV up to several PeV. Our model can somewhat alleviate tensions with the extragalactic $\gamma$-ray background. First, since a larger fraction of the CR energy luminosity density comes from high redshifts, the accompanying $\gamma$-rays are more strongly suppressed through $\gamma\gamma$ annihilations with the cosmic microwave background and the extragalactic background light. Second, mildly radiative-cooled shocks may lead to a harder CR spectrum with spectral indices of $1.5\leq s\leq2.0$. Our study suggests that halo mergers can be promising neutrino emitters without violating the non-blazar $Fermi$ constraints. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:18PM - 4:30PM |
U17.00005: Askaryan Radio Array neutrino detector: status and design considerations for the future Rishabh Khandelwal, Ming-Yuan Lu, Albrecht Karle The Askaryan Radio Array is a large-scale ultra-high energy neutrino detector under construction in the deep, radio-transparent ice of the South Pole. To date, 5 ARA stations have been deployed and 3 have been operated over the last several years. The new stations feature a larger baseline an interferometric trigger string. We report on the science, design, and sensitivity of the experiment along with design considerations for a full-scale array. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:30PM - 4:42PM |
U17.00006: A Search for a Diffuse Flux of UHE Neutrinos from Four Years of Data Taken by Two Stations of the Askaryan Radio Array Carl Pfendner The Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) is radio frequency observatory under construction at the South Pole that is searching for ultrahigh energy neutrinos via the Askaryan effect. By instrumenting several gigatons of Antarctic glacial ice, the experiment aims to detect a flux of neutrinos above 10 PeV in energy. A diffuse flux of UHE neutrinos is expected as products of the GZK effect and sources may also directly produce UHE neutrinos. The full detector consisting of 37 stations is being constructed in a phased deployment with 3 stations already in place and two more recently deployed in the 2017-2018 season. Recent preliminary results from a search for a diffuse flux of UHE neutrinos from four years of data from two stations will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:42PM - 4:54PM |
U17.00007: Directional Reconstruction as a Means of Lowering Thresholds for Point-Source Searches in Askaryan Radio Array Brian Clark The Askaryan Radio Array is an ultra-high energy neutrino detector under construction at the South Pole. By deploying arrays of antennas up to 200 m deep into the Antarctic ice sheet, ARA searches for the radio-Chereknov emission associated with neutrino-nucleon showers. Five stations, of the initial proposed 37, have been deployed so far. Past analysis work has focused on searching for (1) a diffuse flux of neutrinos, that is, neutrinos that come from anywhere at any time, and (2) a flux associated with gamma ray bursts, where the search window is narrowed in time, allowing for lower analysis thresholds. In this talk, we will present preliminary work that demonstrates the feasibility of reducing thresholds further by also constraining searches in the direction of the neutrinos producing the radio emission. This ability to search on both time and direction would represent a new search strategy for ARA. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:54PM - 5:06PM |
U17.00008: Evolving Antennas for Radio Detection of Ultra-High Energy Neutrinos Julie Rolla, Prof. Amy Connolly, Kai Staats, Prof. Stephanie Wissel, Prof. Dean Arakaki, Ian Best, Suren Gourapura, Corey Harris, Hannah Hasan, Luke Letwin, Dr. Carl Pfendner, Jordan Potter, Sam Romano, Lucas Smith, Jacob Trevithick, Max Walker, John Wookey Evolutionary algorithms borrow from biology the concepts of mutation and selection in order to evolve optimized solutions to known problems. These algorithms can be used in a multitude of applications, such as data classification, multivariate regression, and parameter optimization. We are investigating the use of these methods for designing antennas adapted for detection of neutrinos in experiments that utilize the Askaryan radio Cerenkov technique. We are developing genetic algorithms to design antennas that are more optimally sensitive to UHE neutrino-induced radio pulses than current designs. The projects integrate the XFdtd finite-difference time domain modeling program as a test environment against an assigned fitness score for each evolved solution, based on its sensitivity to neutrino detection. We will summarize initial results of these approaches establishing the feasibility of this approach. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 5:06PM - 5:18PM |
U17.00009: Abstract Withdrawn |
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