Design and Initial Performance of the Prototype for the BEACON Instrument for Detection of Ultrahigh Energy Particles

Understand

The Beamforming Elevated Array for COsmic Neutrinos (BEACON) is a planned neutrino telescope designed to detect radio emission from upgoing air showers generated by ultrahigh energy tau neutrino interactions in the Earth.

• This detection mechanism provides a measurement of the tau flux of cosmic neutrinos.
• We have installed an 8-channel prototype instrument at high elevation at Barcroft Field Station, which has been running since 2018, and consists of 4 dual-polarized antennas sensitive between 30-80 MHz, whose signals are filtered, amplified, digitized, and saved to disk using a custom data acquisition system (DAQ).
• The BEACON prototype is at high elevation to maximize effective volume and uses a directional beamforming trigger to improve rejection of anthropogenic background noise at the trigger level.