Project RESUN, a radio EVLA search for UHE neutrinos

Oct, 2009
26 pages
Published in:
  • Astropart.Phys. 34 (2010) 293-303
e-Print:

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Abstract: (Elsevier)
In the past decade there have been several attempts to detect Ultra High Energy (UHE) neutrinos via radio Cerenkov bursts in terrestrial ice or the lunar regolith. So far these searches have yielded no detections, but the inferred flux upper limit s have started to constrain physical models for UHE neutrino generation. We report results from the Radio EVLA Search for UHE Neutrinos (RESUN) experiment, aimed at further limiting isotropic and point-source production models. RESUN uses the Expanded Ver y Large Array (EVLA) configured in multiple sub-arrays of four antennas observing at 1.4GHz and pointed along the lunar limb to detect cm-wavelength Cerenkov bursts. No pulses of lunar origin exceeding a threshold of 0.017@mVm^-^1MHz^-^1 were detected dur ing a observing campaign totaling 200h. The RESUN null detection implies an upper limit to the differential isotropic neutrino flux EdN/dE<1km^-^2yr^-^1sr^-^1 at 90% confidence level for sources with energy (E) exceeding 10^2^1^.^2eV and EdN/dE<0.1km^-^2y r^-^1sr^-^1 for E>10^2^2^.^5eV. The isotropic flux upper limit is the lowest published for lunar searches in the range 10^2^0^.^7eV
  • ultra-high energy neutrinos
  • cosmic rays
  • lunar interactions
  • Neutrinos: ISM
  • Cosmology
  • Observations: galaxies
  • Active: moon: instrumentation
  • Detectors
  • neutrino: UHE
  • neutrino: mass