Abstract
The South Pole, which hosts the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, has a complete and around-the-clock exposure to the Galactic Center. Hence, it is an ideal location to search for gamma rays of PeV energy coming from the Galactic Center. However, it is hard to detect air showers initiated by these gamma rays using cosmic-ray particle detectors due to the low elevation of the Galactic Center. The use of antennas to measure the radio footprint of these air showers will help in this case, and would allow for a 24/7 operation time. So far, only air showers with energies well above 10^{16} eV have been detected with the radio technique. Thus, the energy threshold has to be lowered for the detection of gamma-ray showers of PeV energy. This can be achieved by optimizing the frequency band in order to obtain a higher level of signal-to-noise ratio. With such an approach, PeV gamma-ray showers with high inclination can be measured at the South Pole.
Highlights
The study of air showers using radio detection techniques, to date, has been mainly applied in the case of charged cosmicray measurements and neutrino searches [1,2]. Such showers have been detected with energy thresholds of at least a few tens of PeV. We show that this technique can be used for PeV gamma ray astronomy, by lowering the energy threshold
A surface array of radio antennas at the South Pole can be used to search for air showers produced by PeV gamma rays arriving from the Galactic Center
The focus is on showers of zenith angle 61◦, since this is the direction from which PeV gamma rays will approach the IceCube Observatory from the Galactic Center
Summary
The study of air showers using radio detection techniques, to date, has been mainly applied in the case of charged cosmicray measurements and neutrino searches [1,2]. We show that this technique can be used for PeV gamma ray astronomy, by lowering the energy threshold This can be done by extending the frequency band of measurement to higher frequencies than those used by current radio air-shower arrays. A surface array of radio antennas at the South Pole can be used to search for air showers produced by PeV gamma rays arriving from the Galactic Center. Inclined air showers of PeV energy will be hard to detect and reconstruct effectively using particle detectors, since a major part of the shower dies out by the time it reaches the detector array This is especially the case for showers induced by gamma rays. This paper focuses on this aspect, especially on the optimization of the observing frequency bands in order to lower the threshold energy for the detection of gamma-ray air showers
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