Collaborative Research: WoU-MMA: The Radar Echo Telescope for Cosmic Rays and Neutrinos: Toward a Transformative Technology for Neutrino Detection

This project will develop the prototype of the Radar Echo Telescope for Cosmic Rays and Neutrinos ready for installation at Taylor Dome in Antarctica. Radar echo detection is the process by which radio waves are reflected from an object in order to measure its properties, including position, direction, and spatial extent. High-energy particles interacting in a dense material like ice produce cascades of charged particles and a dense cloud of ionization, which reflects incident radio waves, allowing for remote detection of high-energy particles such as neutrinos.

Such radar echoes have already been observed in a test-beam measurement. This work will establish the technical aspects of this transformative detector technology for neutrinos with energies of 10 peta-electron-volts (PeV) and beyond. Expanding access to scientific thought and activities at a young age is a key step towards expanding general scientific literacy and training future scientists from all backgrounds.

The NSF-supported ASPIRE program at The Ohio State University for high school women will be extended to involve the radar detection of meteors. Students will design, construct, and use an antenna to detect a faint radio signal, inspiring curiosity and creativity.

The first installation to be planned will be the Radar Echo Telescope (RET) for Cosmic Rays (RET-CR,) which will detect cascades from ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR) and develop the techniques for the future RET for neutrinos, RET-N. UHECR are well studied and make an ideal, in-situ ‘test beam’. The optical Cherenkov detector IceCube has detected neutrinos above 1PeV, and its upgrade will extend this to ~10 PeV.

The RET targets neutrinos with energies in the 10-100 PeV range, for which there is no existing technology with greater sensitivity. Detecting a statistically significant population of 10-100 PeV neutrinos is crucial to probe the sources of UHECR and to measure neutrino-nucleon interactions at center-of-mass energies >100 TeV, both open experimental questions. This project advances the goals of the NSF Windows on the Universe Big Idea.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.