Design and Performance of an Interferometric Trigger Array for Radio Detection of High-Energy Neutrinos

Understand

Ultra-high energy neutrinos are detectable through impulsive radio signals generated through interactions in dense media, such as ice.

• Subsurface in-ice radio arrays are a promising way to advance the observation and measurement of astrophysical high-energy neutrinos with energies above those discovered by the IceCube detector ($\geq$1 PeV) as well as cosmogenic neutrinos created in the GZK process ($\geq$100 PeV).
• Here we describe the $\textit{NuPhase}$ detector, which is a compact receiving array of low-gain antennas deployed 185 m deep in glacial ice near the South Pole.
• Signals from the antennas are digitized and coherently summed into multiple beams to form a low-threshold interferometric phased array trigger for radio impulses.