Polarization Reconstruction of Cosmic Rays with the ARIANNA Neutrino Radio Detector

Zhao L, Anker A, Baldi P, Barwick SW, Beise J, Bernhoff H, Besson DZ, Bingefors N, Cataldo M, Chen P, Fernández DG, 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 L, Rice-Smith R, Tatar J, Wang SH, Welling C (2022)

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2022

Journal

PoS - Proceedings of Science SISSA

Publisher: Sissa Medialab Srl

Book Volume: 395

Conference Proceedings Title: Proceedings of Science

Event location: Berlin DE

Abstract

The ARIANNA detector is designed to detect neutrinos of energies above 1016 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. The radio emission properties of air showers are well understood, and the polarization of the radio signal can be predicted from arrival direction with high precision. For this reason, 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. A total of 148 cosmic rays are identified from over 90,000 triggered events collected between Nov 21, 2018 and Mar 15, 2019. A cut was put on these events requiring them to have a signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio of at least 4.5 in all upward-facing channels. This was to improve the performance of arrival direction and polarization reconstruction algorithms. Polarization of these cosmic rays were reconstructed with a resolution of 3.5 degrees (68% containment), which agrees with the expected value we obtained from simulation. Furthermore, if we subselect events with zenith angle greater than 70 deg, the contribution to polarization of Askaryan effect is reduced, which reduces the error in the predicted polarization. With limited statistics, we find the polarization uncertainty is reduced to 1.3 deg (68% containment).

Authors with CRIS profile

Maddalena Cataldo 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 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) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) US United States (USA) (US) Whittier College US United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Zhao, L., Anker, A., Baldi, P., Barwick, S.W., Beise, J., Bernhoff, H.,... Welling, C. (2022). Polarization Reconstruction of Cosmic Rays with the ARIANNA Neutrino Radio Detector. In Proceedings of Science. Berlin, DE: Sissa Medialab Srl.

MLA:

Zhao, Leshan, et al. "Polarization Reconstruction of Cosmic Rays with the ARIANNA Neutrino Radio Detector." Proceedings of the 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference, ICRC 2021, Berlin Sissa Medialab Srl, 2022.

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