Simulation of birefringence effects for high-energy neutrino detectors
2021 (English)Student paper other, 10 credits / 15 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
The detection of high-energy neutrinos in the E > O(PeV) range requires newdetection techniques in order to cope with the decreasing flux. The radio detectionmethod uses Askaryan emission to detect these neutrinos. The propagation of theradio pulses has to be modeled carefully in order to estimate the properties of theneutrinos from the detected radio pulse. This report introduces a model whichwas implemented to the NuRadioMC code to simulate birefringence effects in theice of the South Pole. To do that, a new ice model was created which combinesthe density and directional dependence on the refractive index. With this icemodel and an analytical ray tracer the time delay and polarization resulting frombirefringence was simulated for different geometries. A directional dependenceon the magnitude of the time delay and the change of the polarization along thepropagation path was found. To model the mixing of the polarization states dueto this change in polarization a pulse propagation model was introduced. Timedelay calculations resulting from this model were compared to simulations andmeasurements from the ARA experiment and have shown good agreement.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021.
Series
FYSAST ; FYSPROJ1236
Keywords [en]
astroparticle physics, radio detection, high-energy neutrinos, birefringence
National Category
Subatomic Physics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-459988OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-459988DiVA, id: diva2:1615728
Educational program
Master Programme in Physics
Presentation
2021-11-17, 13:00 (English)
Supervisors
Examiners
2021-12-022021-11-302021-12-02Bibliographically approved