Introduction to the SalSA, a saltdome shower array as a GZK neutrino observatory
David Saltzberg, University of California, Los Angeles
David Saltzberg, University of California, Los Angeles
Katsushi Arisaka, University of California, Los Angeles
Ron Bain, ConRon Consulting
Steven Barwick, University of California, Irvine
James Beatty, The Ohio State University
David Besson, University of Kansas
W. Robert Binns, Washington University in St. Louis
Chien Wen Chen, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Pisin Chen, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Michael Cherry, Louisiana State University
Amy Connolly, University of California, Los Angeles
Michael DuVernois, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Clive Field, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Manfred Fink, The University of Texas at Austin
David Goldstein, University of California, Irvine
Peter Gorham, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Giorgio Gratta, Stanford University
T. Gregory Guzik, Louisiana State University
Francis Halzen, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Carsten Hast, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Jay Hauser, University of California, Los Angeles
Stephen Hoover, University of California, Los Angeles
Charles Jui, The University of Utah
Spencer Klein, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
John Learned, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Gueylin Lin, National Chiao Tung University
Shige Matsuno, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
James Matthews, Louisiana State University
Radovan Milincic, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Predrag Miocinovicn, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Rolf Nahnhauer, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)
Ji Woo Nam, University of California, Irvine
Abstract
The observed spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays virtually guarantees the presence of ultra-high energy neutrinos due to their interaction with the cosmic microwave background. Every one of these neutrinos will point back to its source and, unlike cosmic rays, will arrive at the Earth unattenuated, from sources perhaps as distant as z=20. The neutrino telescopes currently under construction, should discover a handful of these events, probably too few for detailed study. In this talk I will describe how an array of VHF and UHF antennas embedded in a large salt dome, SalSA (Saltdome Shower Array) promises to yield a teraton detector (> 500 km3-sr) for contained neutrino events with energies above 1017 eV. Our simulations show that such a detector may observe several hundreds of these neutrinos over its lifetime. Our simulations also show how such interactions will provide high energy physicists with an energy frontier for weak interactions an order-of-magnitude larger than that of the LHC. The flavor ID capalities of SALSA, combined with the extreme L/E of these neutrinos, will provide a window on neutrino oscillations and decay times eight orders of magnitude higher than laboratory experiments. In addition to the latest simulation results, we describe progress on detectors and site selection. © World Scientific Publishing Company.
