Project RESUN: Radio EVLA Search for UHE Neutrinos

RESUN（无线电EVLA搜索UHE中微子）项目旨在通过探测来自月球的短时间切伦科夫射电爆发来搜索超高能量（UHE）宇宙中微子。观测项目使用美国国家科学基金会在新墨西哥州的扩展甚大阵列（EVLA）射电望远镜，并使用天文信号处理中心和电子研究实验室开发的专用硬件进行高速数据采集和脉冲重合检测系统。了解星系外能量源的物理学是当前天体物理学中最重要和最深入研究的目标之一。目前正在进行或计划进行的大量实验将以月球和南极冰架为目标，寻找超高能中微子。RESUN项目探测了一个高于地面目标实验的能量范围，如果不能实际探测到的话，至少会提供那里中微子通量的一个新的上限。任何探测都将是非常令人兴奋的，而且可能是革命性的：即使是一个极限，也会限制超大质量粒子衰变和由拓扑缺陷产生中微子的某些模型。一个试点项目已经证明了这种搜索的可行性。对UHE中微子的研究跨越了几个学科，包括观测射电天文学、理论和高能天体物理学。培养研究生和本科生掌握最先进的数据采集仪器，以及适用于当前和计划中的天文设施的软件和分析技术，无疑是有好处的。

AST-0908909MutelThe RESUN (Radio EVLA Search for UHE Neutrinos) project is designed to search for ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic neutrinos by detecting short-duration Cerenkov radio bursts from the Moon. The observational program uses the NSF's Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) radio telescope in New Mexico, with a high-speed data acquisition and pulse coincidence detection system using specialized hardware developed at the Center for Astronomical Signal Processing and Electronics Research laboratory. Understanding the physics of energetic extragalactic sources is one of the most important and intensely studied goals in current astrophysics. A large number of experiments, currently operating or being planned, will search for ultra-high energy neutrinos, using both the Moon and the Antarctic ice shelf as targets. The RESUN project probes an energy range above the terrestrial-target experiments and will provide at least a new upper limit on the neutrino flux there, if not an actual detection. Any detection would be very exciting and possibly transformative: even a limit will constrain certain models of the decay of super-massive particles and of neutrino production by topological defects. A pilot project has already demonstrated the viability of this search.The search for UHE neutrinos spans several disciplines, including observational radio astronomy, and theoretical and high-energy astrophysics. There is a definite benefit to training graduate and undergraduate students in state of the art data acquisition instrumentation as well as software and analysis techniques appropriate to current and planned astronomical facilities.