Measuring the polarization reconstruction resolution of the ARIANNA neutrino detector with cosmic rays

Anker A, Baldi P, Barwick SW, Beise J, Besson DZ, Bouma S, Cataldo M, Chen P, Gaswint G, Glaser C, Hallgren A, Hallmann S, Hanson JC, Klein SR, Kleinfelder SA, Lahmann R, Liu J, Magnuson M, McAleer S, Meyers Z, Nam J, Nelles A, Novikov A, Paul MP, Persichilli C, Plaisier I, Pyras LM, Rice-Smith R, Tatar J, Wang SH, Welling C, Zhao L (2022)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2022

Journal

Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Institute of Physics: Hybrid Open Access

Book Volume: 2022

Article Number: 022

Journal Issue: 4

DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2022/04/022

Abstract

The ARIANNA detector is designed to detect neutrinos with energies above 1017 eV. Due to the similarities in generated radio signals, cosmic rays are often used as test beams for neutrino detectors. Some ARIANNA detector stations are equipped with antennas capable of detecting air showers. Since the radio emission properties of air showers are well understood, and the polarization of the radio signal can be predicted from the arrival direction, cosmic rays can be used as a proxy to assess the reconstruction capabilities of the ARIANNA neutrino detector. We report on dedicated efforts of reconstructing the polarization of cosmic-ray radio pulses. After correcting for difference in hardware, the two stations used in this study showed similar performance in terms of event rate and agreed with simulation. Subselecting high quality cosmic rays, the polarizations of these cosmic rays were reconstructed with a resolution of 2.5° (68% containment), which agrees with the expected value obtained from simulation. A large fraction of this resolution originates from uncertainties in the predicted polarization because of the contribution of the subdominant Askaryan effect in addition to the dominant geomagnetic emission. Subselecting events with a zenith angle greater than 70° removes most influence of the Askaryan emission, and, with limited statistics, we found the polarization uncertainty is reduced to 1.3° (68% containment).

Authors with CRIS profile

Sjoerd Bouma Professur für Experimentelle Astroteilchenphysik, insbesondere Radionachweis von Neutrinos Maddalena Cataldo Professur für Experimentelle Astroteilchenphysik, insbesondere Radionachweis von Neutrinos Robert Lahmann Lehrstuhl für Experimentalphysik (Astroteilchenphysik) Zachary Meyers Professur für Experimentelle Astroteilchenphysik, insbesondere Radionachweis von Neutrinos Anna Nelles Professur für Experimentelle Astroteilchenphysik, insbesondere Radionachweis von Neutrinos Ilse Plaisier Professur für Experimentelle Astroteilchenphysik, insbesondere Radionachweis von Neutrinos Lilly Marie Pyras Professur für Experimentelle Astroteilchenphysik, insbesondere Radionachweis von Neutrinos Christoph Welling Professur für Experimentelle Astroteilchenphysik, insbesondere Radionachweis von Neutrinos

Involved external institutions

University of California Irvine US United States (USA) (US) Uppsala University SE Sweden (SE) University of Kansas (KU) US United States (USA) (US) National Taiwan University (NTU) TW Taiwan (TW) Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY DE Germany (DE) Whittier College US United States (USA) (US) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) US United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Anker, A., Baldi, P., Barwick, S.W., Beise, J., Besson, D.Z., Bouma, S.,... Zhao, L. (2022). Measuring the polarization reconstruction resolution of the ARIANNA neutrino detector with cosmic rays. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2022(4). https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2022/04/022

MLA:

Anker, A., et al. "Measuring the polarization reconstruction resolution of the ARIANNA neutrino detector with cosmic rays." Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2022.4 (2022).

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