On radio detection of ultrahigh energy neutrinos in Antarctic ice

Interactions of ultrahigh energy neutrinos of cosmological origin in large volumes of dense, radiotransparent media can be detected via coherent Cherenkov emission from accompanying electromagnetic showers. Antarctic ice meets the requirements for an efficient detection medium for a radio frequency neutrino telescope. We carefully estimate the sensitivity of realistic antennas embedded deep in the ice to 100 MHz endash 1 GHz signals generated by predicted neutrino fluxes from active galactic nuclei. Our main conclusion is that a single radio receiver can probe an ∼1 km3 volume for events with primary energy near 2 PeV and that the total number of events registered would be roughly 200 to 400 yr-1 in our most conservative estimate. An array of such receivers would increase sensitivity dramatically. A radio neutrino telescope could directly observe and test our understanding of the most powerful particle accelerators in the Universe, simultaneously testing the standard theory of particle physics at unprecedented energies. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society