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 a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...
s with energies above about 10^17 eV. ARIANNA will be built on the
Ross Ice Shelf 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, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
, 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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