Abstract

The detection of extensive air showers (EAS) through their radio signal is becoming one of the most promising techniques for the study of neutrinos and cosmic rays at the highest energies. For the design, optimization and characterization of radio arrays and their associated reconstruction algorithms, tens of thousands of Monte Carlo simulations are needed. Current available simulation codes can take several days to compute the signals produced by a single shower, making it impossible to produce the required simulations in a reasonable amount of time, in a cost-effective and environmental-conscious way. In this article we present a method to synthesize the expected signals (the full time trace, not just the peak amplitude) at any point around the shower core, given a set of signals simulated in a finite number of antennas strategically located in a pattern that exploits the signature features of the radio wavefront. The method can be applied indistinctly to the electric field or to the antenna response to the electric field, in the three polarization directions, as long as the maximum of the shower is above the horizon. The synthesized signal can be used to evaluate trigger conditions, compute the fluence or reconstruct the shower incoming direction, allowing for the production of a single library of simulations covering the incoming particles phase-space that can be used and re-used for the characterization and optimization of radio arrays and their associated reconstruction methods, for a thousandth part of the otherwise required CPU time.

Highlights

  • : The detection of extensive air showers (EAS) through their radio signal is becoming one of the most promising techniques for the study of Neutrinos and Cosmic rays at the highest energies

  • The method was successfully used for the synthesis of signals from showers initiated by neutrinos at the GRAND array [11], with a mean bias in the estimation of the peak amplitude of the signals of less than 10% and a standard deviation of 25%, which is impressive considering that a single shower was used to cover all the incoming phase-space

  • To illustrate how this affects the signal synthesis we show in fig 11, for our example event of fig. 2, the lateral distribution function (LDF) of the amplitudes of the Fourier components of the Y channel at 3 different frequencies

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Summary

Underlying model and strategy for the interpolation

The radio emission of particle showers can be described as a superposition of two distinct emerging phenomena. The radiation will be polarized in the direction of vì × Bì, and propagating as a spherical wavefront at the speed of light in the medium, v = c/n In this simplified model, due to the rotational symmetry, the signal at any point in a plane perpendicular to the propagation direction of the shower can be described solely as a function of α, the angle between the point and the shower axis, measured from Xmax (Fig. 1). The amplitude of the Askarian emission is radially symmetric, but its polarization is pointing towards the shower axis, and will add constructively to the Geomagnetic emission for some values of φ and destructively for others, further disrupting the rotational symmetry

Interpolation Strategy
Signal Interpolation
Simulations used
Zero Normalized Cross Correlation
Reduction in CPU time
Performance of the method on signal observables
Maximum amplitude
Triggering errors
Integrated Power
Linear interpolation effects
PowerZ
Peak Timing
Local topography
Conclusions
Findings
Aknowledgments
Full Text
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