CAREER Towards a GZK Neutrino Detector at the South Pole

南极 GZK 中微子探测器的职业生涯

• 批准号: 0847658
• 负责人: Kara Hoffman
• 金额: $ 49.99万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-01 至 2014-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0847658&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Towards; GZK; Neutrino; Detector

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Nearly one hundred years after the discovery of cosmic rays, neutrino telescopes are becoming an integral part of a multi-messenger approach to discovering their still elusive origins. Neutrinos are unique astronomical messengers which may provide critical information in identifying sources of cosmic rays and the physics processes out of which they are born. Neutrinos retain their directional information through magnetic fields and point back to their source. They can travel long distances from their sources without significant attenuation. The observation of neutrinos from an astrophysical source would be unambiguous evidence for hadronic acceleration, since cosmic proton accelerators are expected to produce cosmic rays, gamma rays and neutrinos with similar luminosities. Recent data from HiRES and AUGER seem to support the existence of the "GZK cutoff", the modification of the cosmic ray spectrum due to the photoproduction effect and hence one expects a flux of ultra-high energy neutrinos from the charged pion decays.Because of the low flux at extremely high energies, novel techniques must be employed to build a cost effective array large enough to gain a statistically meaningful number of events at GZK energies. One such technique uses the Askaryan effect where the Cerenkov radiation in the radio frequencies (RF) is used to measure the energy and direction of the showers that result from the neutrino interactions. This award provides funds to continue research and development towards a detector to sense the RF emission from neutrino induced showers in RF transparent media such as ice. Such an RF sensor at the South Pole would significantly extend the flux sensitivity of the IceCube array. The Broader Impacts of this project include involvement in public outreach, working to expand U. Maryland's QuarkNet program to a larger audience and visiting local high schools to talk to students and teachers about research and experiences as a scientist.

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。在发现宇宙射线近一百年后，中微子望远镜正在成为多信使方法的一个组成部分，以发现它们仍然难以捉摸的起源。中微子是一种独特的天文学信使，它可以为识别宇宙射线的来源和它们产生的物理过程提供关键信息。中微子通过磁场保持它们的方向信息，并指向它们的源头。它们可以在没有明显衰减的情况下从源传播很远的距离。从天体物理源观测到中微子将是强子加速的明确证据，因为宇宙质子加速器预计会产生具有相似光度的宇宙射线、伽马射线和中微子。最近来自HiRES和AUGER的数据似乎支持“GZK截止点”的存在，这是由于光产生效应导致的宇宙射线谱的改变，因此人们期望从带电的介子衰变中产生超高能中微子的通量。由于极高能量下的低通量，必须采用新的技术来建立一个足够大的具有成本效益的阵列，以获得具有统计意义的GZK能量事件数量。其中一种技术是利用阿斯卡扬效应，利用无线电频率（RF）中的切伦科夫辐射来测量中微子相互作用产生的阵雨的能量和方向。该奖项为继续研究和开发探测器提供了资金，该探测器可以在RF透明介质（如冰）中感知中微子引起的射频发射。在南极安装这样的射频传感器将大大提高冰立方阵列的通量灵敏度。这个项目的广泛影响包括参与公共宣传，努力将马里兰大学的夸克网络项目扩展到更多的受众，并访问当地的高中，与学生和老师谈论研究和科学家的经历。