Design and performance of the South Pole Acoustic Test Setup Abdou, Y.; Becker, K.-H.; Berdermann, J. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
08/2012, Volume:
683
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The South Pole Acoustic Test Setup (SPATS) was built to evaluate the acoustic characteristics of the South Pole ice in the 10–100kHz frequency range, for the purpose of assessing the feasibility of ...an acoustic neutrino detection array at the South Pole. The SPATS hardware consists of four vertical strings deployed in the upper 500m of the South Pole ice cap. The strings form a trapezoidal array with a maximum baseline of 543m. Each string has seven stages equipped with one transmitter and one sensor module (glaciophone). Sound is detected or generated by piezoelectric ceramic elements inside the modules. Analogue signals are sent to the surface on electric cables where they are digitized by a PC-based data acquisition system. The data from all strings are collected on a central computer in the IceCube Laboratory from where they are sent to a central data storage facility via a satellite link or stored locally on tape. A technical overview of SPATS and its performance is presented.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Astrophysical neutrinos at EeV energies promise to be an interesting source for astrophysics and particle physics. Detecting the predicted cosmogenic (Greisen-Zatsepin- Kusmin, "GZK") neutrinos at ...1016 - 1020 eV would test models of cosmic ray production at these energies and probe particle physics at ∼100 TeV center-of-mass energy. IceCube may be able to detect ∼10 GZK events per year with an extension including optical, radio, and acoustic receivers sparsely arrayed surrounding the optical core. Such a detector would feature crosscalibration with coincident events and would allow superior background rejection capability, energy and direction resolution, and confidence in discovered signals compared to single-method detectors. We present estimates of the neutrino effective volume for such a hybrid array both with the single-method sub-arrays independently and requiring combinations of sub-arrays to detect the same events. We also present ideas on hybrid event reconstruction and results from a proof-of-principle Monte Carlo test of a hybrid reconstruction algorithm.
In order to detect the small neutrino fluxes expected at ultra-high energies, large volumes of materials have to be instrumented with inexpensive but sensitive acoustic sensors. The South Pole ...Acoustic Test Setup (SPATS) will be installed in the Antarctic ice during the polar season 2006/2007 after which the collected data will be used to reveal the acoustic properties of the South Polar ice cap. The developed piezoceramic based ultrasound sensors and transmitters that are part of this system have been extensively studied during calibration measurements in water, using a commercial hydrophone as reference. Also, a SPATS system test was accomplished in Lake Torneträsk, Abisko (Sweden). This allowed verification of the DAQ system, transmitter range and sensor performance. Here the results of the calibrations and the Abisko lake measurements are reported.
Due to the low flux of ultra-high energetic neutrinos induced in interactions of cosmic rays with the cosmic microwave background, very large instrumented volumes and new registration techniques are ...necessary for their detection. The south polar ice offers the unique opportunity to implement existing Cherenkov techniques as well as registration of radio and acoustic waves from the neutrino interaction. A simulation of a ~ 120 km3 hybrid optical/radio/acoustic detector showed that event rates of ~ 10 per year can be achieved. In this simulation the ultrasonic parameters of antarctic ice regarding absorption, scattering and environmental noise pose the key uncertainty. To evaluate the acoustic properties in-situ, the South Pole Acoustic Test Setup (SPATS) has been created. An array of custom-made ultrasonic sensors and transmitters will be deployed on three strings in the upper 400 m of the holes of the IceCube experiment. The status of the experiment and a first evaluation of its performance are presented here.
SPATS - an Acoustic Array at the South Pole group:, S Hundertmark for the Spats; Böser, S; Bohm, C ...
Journal of physics. Conference series,
03/2007, Volume:
60, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The detection of extraterrestrial EHE neutrinos requires detection volumes at least one order of magnitude larger than currently constructed km3 optical neutrino detectors. In ice, it is anticipated ...that the absorption length for acoustic waves reaches up to to several kilometers. This makes ice an attractive host environment for a next generation acoustic neutrino detector. To measure the acoustic properties of ice at South Pole, a test setup has been developed, ready to be deployed in the 2006/07 summer season.
The interest in the detection of cosmic neutrinos with energies above 10
17
eV has increased considerably in recent years. Possible target materials for in-matter arrays of ∼100
km
3 size under ...discussion are water, ice and rock salt. Here we propose to investigate permafrost as an additional alternative, covering ∼20% of Earth land surface and reaching down to more than 1000
m depth at certain locations. If sufficiently large attenuation lengths for radio and acoustic signals can be demonstrated by in-situ measurements, the construction of a large hybrid array within this material may be possible in the Northern Hemisphere. Properties and problems of a possible location in Siberia are discussed below. Some acoustic data are compared with laboratory measurements using “artificial” permafrost.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
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