Antarctic Ross Ice-Shelf Antenna Neutrino Array (ARIANNA) is a proposed detector for ultra-high energy astrophysical neutrinos. It will detect coherent radio
Cherenkov emissions from the particle showers produced by
neutrino
A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that i ...
s with energies above about 10^17 eV. ARIANNA will be built on the
Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica (, an area of roughly and about across: about the size of France). It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than long, and between high ...
just off the coast of
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
, where it will eventually cover about 900 km
2 in surface area. There, the ice-water interface below the shelf reflects radio waves, giving ARIANNA sensitivity to downward going neutrinos and improving its sensitivity to horizontally incident neutrinos. ARIANNA detector stations will each contain 4-8 antennas which search for brief pulses of 50 MHz to 1 GHz radio emission from neutrino interactions.
As of 2016, a prototype array consisting of 7 stations had been deployed, and was taking data. An initial search for neutrinos was made; none were found, and an upper limit was generated.
References
External links
ARIANNA Home Page
Neutrino experiments
Astrophysics
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