Chasing GZK Neutrinos – The IceRay Project

by Prof. Bob Morse (UHM)

Thursday Oct 25, 2007, 3:30 PM → 4:30 PM Pacific/Honolulu

Rm 112 (UHM - Watanabe Hall)

The challenge of detecting the highest-energy neutrinos is enormous, and not because of their stealth, but because of their numbers. At these high energies neutrino fluxes are measured in neutrinos per square-kilometer per century, IceRay proposed to study the feasibility of constructing a 50 square-kilometer GZK neutrino detector array that will work in concert with the IceCube detector at the South Pole. This detector will enhance the ultra-high-energy capabilities of IceCube and could serve as a prototype for larger arrays of 300 to 1000 square-kilometers which could detect up to 100 GZK neutrinos per year. Using the Cherenkov radiation emitted in the 60-1000 MHz region when energetic neutrinos interact and shower in the ice, even such a modest 50 square-kilometer detector with 36 radio detection stations could detect up to 5-10 GZK neutrinos per year.

J.G. Learned