Physics Potential of a Radio Surface Array at the South Pole (ARENA 2018)

Understand

A surface array of radio antennas will enhance the performance of the IceTop array and enable new, complementary science goals.

• First, the accuracy for cosmic-ray air showers will be increased since the radio array provides a calorimetric measurement of the electromagnetic component and is sensitive to the position of the shower maximum.
• This enhanced accuracy can be used to better measure the mass composition, to search for possible mass-dependent anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic rays, and for more thorough tests of hadronic interaction models.
• Second, the sensitivity of the radio array to inclined showers will increase the sky coverage for cosmic-ray measurements.