"Radio Detectors for Ultra-High Energy Neutrinos"

Presented by Dr. Christoph Welling, Eberly Research Fellow, from Pennsylvania State University.

Even after more than a century of research, cosmic rays still pose many open questions today. Especially the sources of the most energetic cosmic rays remain unknown. Neutrino astronomy has made important contributions towards answering this question, but current neutrino observatories operate at energy ranges several orders of magnitude below those of cosmic ray detectors. Extending neutrino astronomy to ultra-high energies would allow us to probe the sources of UHE cosmic rays more directly and help identify them.

The main obstacle for UHE neutrino astronomy is the low neutrino flux that is expected at these energies. To detect even just a few neutrinos per year, detectors would have to reach sizes that are unfeasible using current optical detection methods.

Fortunately, particle showers from neutrino interactions in ice produce radio signals via the Askaryan effect, which are detectable over much longer distances than optical light. This allows for the construction of gigantic radio-based neutrino detectors at a relatively low cost.

In this seminar, I will mainly talk about two different experiments using this technique: The Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G) uses radio antennas deployed in the ice sheet at Summit Station, Greenland while the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) is a balloon-borne detector searching for radio signals from neutrino interactions from high above Antarctica.

Bring your lunch to enjoy during the seminar.