Permafrost - An Alternative Target Material for Ultra High Energy Neutrino Detection?

Understand

The detection of cosmic neutrinos with energies above 1017 eV got growing interest during recent years.

• Possible target materials for in-matter arrays of ~100 km3 size under discussion are water, ice and rock salt.
• Here we propose to investigate permafrost as an additional alternative, covering ~20% of Earth land surface and reaching down to more than 1000 m depth at certain locations.
• If sufficiently large attenuation lengths for radio and acoustic signals can be demonstrated by in-situ measurements, the construction of a large hybrid array within this material may be possible in the Northern hemisphere.