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IceCube-Plus: an ultra-high-energy neutrino telescope

Francis Halzen1 and Dan Hooper2

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While the first kilometre-scale neutrino telescope, IceCube, is still under construction, alternative plans exist to build even larger detectors that will, however, be limited by a much higher neutrino energy threshold of 10 PeV or rather higher than 10 to 100 GeV. These future projects detect radio and acoustic pulses as well as air showers initiated by ultra-high-energy neutrinos. As an alternative, we here propose an expansion of IceCube, using the same strings, placed on a grid with a spacing of order 500 m. Unlike other proposals, the expanded detector uses methods that are understood and calibrated on atmospheric neutrinos. Atmospheric neutrinos represent the only background at the energies under consideration and are totally negligible. Also, the cost of such a detector is understood. We conclude that supplementing the 81 IceCube strings with a modest number of additional strings spaced at large distances can almost double the effective volume of the detector. Doubling the number of strings on a 800 m grid can deliver a detector that is a factor of 5 larger for horizontal muons at modest cost.


Keywords

neutrino experiments

cosmological neutrinos

ultra high energy photons and neutrinos

neutrino detectors

 

E-print Number: astro-ph/0310152

Cited: by |

Refers: to

PACS

95.55.Vj Neutrino, muon, pion, and other elementary particle detectors; cosmic ray detectors

95.85.Ry Neutrino, muon, pion, and other elementary particles; cosmic rays

96.50.S- Cosmic rays

96.50.sd Extensive air showers

95.85.Bh Radio, microwave (>1 mm)

98.80.Es Observational cosmology (including Hubble constant, distance scale, cosmological constant, early Universe, etc)

Subjects

Instrumentation and measurement

Gravitation and cosmology

Particle physics and field theory

Astrophysics and astroparticles

Dates

Issue 01 (January 2004)

Received 14 October 2003, accepted for publication 11 December 2003

Published 9 January 2004



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