Speaker
Description
Ultra-high-energy (UHE) neutrinos are unique cosmic messengers that can traverse cosmological distances unattenuated, providing direct insight into the most energetic processes in the universe. Radio detection offers significant advantages for detecting highly inclined air showers induced by UHE neutrinos, due to a larger exposure range compared to particle detectors, resulting from minimal atmospheric attenuation of radio signals combined with good reconstruction precision. Furthermore, this technique improves the reconstruction of the air-shower longitudinal development, which can be used to identify neutrinos with their first interaction far below the top of the atmosphere.
In this work, we present a method for identifying UHE neutrinos using ground-based radio antennas. A reconstruction algorithm is introduced based on the radio emission maximum ($X^{\mathrm{radio}}_{\mathrm{max}}$), which demonstrates its power in distinguishing deeply developing neutrino-induced showers from background cosmic rays. Using simulations of $\nu_e$-CC-induced air showers, we evaluate the trigger efficiency, reconstruction performance, and the resulting effective area and aperture prediction for a reference array.
Our results show that radio detection significantly enhances sensitivity to very inclined showers above 1 EeV, complementing traditional particle detectors. This technique is highly scalable and applicable to future air shower radio observatories, such as GRAND. The proposed reconstruction and identification strategy provides a pathway toward achieving the sensitivity required to detect UHE neutrinos.