Studies of radio emission from neutrino induced showers generated in rock salt

Abstract

Radio emission from particle showers can be used as a method of neutrino detection in the high and very high energy range as a Cherenkov pulse originates from the charge excess developing in the medium. Our study presents simulations of neutrino induced showers in rock salt and the radio emission that they generate, using the HERWIG, GEANT4 and AIRES codes. We have performed a complete study of all neutrino flavours interacting on nuclei, both for charged-current and neutral-current interactions, using the knowledge and codes available today. As primary neutrino energies we have chosen three values: 1012eV, 1015eV and 1017eV. We have injected all the particles resulting from the first interactions into shower simulation codes.Salt is one of the dielectric media proposed for radio detection of neutrinos already in the sixties of last century, and can be found in large volumes throughout the world.The calculation of the radio signal was performed considering the entire shower evolution, by approximating the shower with a current density. We have taken into account, in the equations, only the longitudinal profile. The aim of this study is to investigate whether different interactions can be discriminated in an experiment for detection of high energy particles based on the radio emission from the showers they initiate in a dense medium. For this we have performed and systematically analyzed simulations from several points of view.