Calibration and Physics with ARA Station 1: A Unique Askaryan Radio Array Detector

Le résumé fourni par la source

The Askaryan Radio Array Station 1 (ARA01), the first among five autonomous stations deployed for the ARA experiment at the South Pole (SP), is a unique ultra-high energy neutrino (UHEN) detector based on the Askaryan effect that uses Antarctic ice as the detector medium. Its radio antennas (four strings of receiving antennas; each receiver string consists of 2 Vertically Polarized (VPol), 2 Horizontally Polarized (HPol) receivers), and 2 strings of calibration transmitter antennas (CP), each with 1 VPol and 1 HPol channel, are deployed at depths less than 100 m within the shallow firn zone of the 2.5 km thick SP ice. We apply different methods to calibrate its Ice Ray Sampler second generation (IRS2) chip for timing offset and ADC-to-Voltage conversion factors using a known continuous wave input signal to the digitizer, and achieve a precision of sub-nanoseconds. We achieve better calibration for odd, compared to even samples, and also find that the HPols under-perform relative to the VPol channels. Our timing calibrated data is subsequently used to calibrate the ADC-to-Voltage conversion as well as precise antenna locations, as a precursor to vertex reconstruction. The calibrated data will then be analyzed for UHEN signals in the final step of data compression. The ability of ARA01 to scan the firn region of SP ice sheet will contribute greatly towards a 5-station analysis and will inform the design of the planned IceCube Gen-2 radio array.

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