Anita Simulation on the Mainland Amy Connolly April 9 th, 2005

Review of how our simulation works Pick balloon position Pick interaction point in ice within horizon Trace ray to balloon Pick neutrino direction at random, throw away events that can’t pass (if too far off Cerenkov Cone) All events given a weight that accounts for  ‘s attenuation in Earth  Volume of ice in horizon  Bias in selection of direction Model Antenna response for ray’s hit angle Signal summed over frequency bins Model trigger including bandwidth slices and treatment of polarizations

Documentation on the elog (#17) Comments on that doc led to many improvements  Signal modeling, trigger sim., n(z) function, some bugs Other new features since last meeting  Geoid earth shape  Secondary interactions  Capability for reflected rays (Fenfang)  Actual Anita-lite flight(shown Thursday,approx )  Polarization vector rotated properly (few %)  Use measured antenna gains instead of specs (-10%)  Various bug fixes resulting from a few more sets of eyes looking at the code (largest- fresnel coeff. error factor of 10)  Keeping log file (kept on CVS) listing each modification and the resulting % change at eV for SM  Since our last collaboration meeting…

Rays reflected from Rock-Ice Interface Due to uncertainties in reflection from rock (Steve will discuss this), not a default setting. But the capability is there with the flip of a switch. Fenfang added the capability of accounting for rays that are emitted downward and are detected after being reflected from ice-rock interface. Largest impact at high cross sections. Could open up large region of the sky!

Secondary Interactions Use Ped’s distributions generated from MMC for multiplicity, energy for each flavor, interaction type For a given neutrino:  Pick # of interactions of each type from Poisson distribution  For each interaction, grab energy (as fraction of neutrino energy) from Ped’s plots  Keep only the interaction (primary or secondary) which contributes the strongest signal At ,  Sensitivity to  increases by 50%  Sensitivity to  increases by nearly factor of 2

Direct Comparisons Between Simulations Have Begun Ice altitudegiven3.0 km3 km Ice surfacederived km km Payload height above icegiven37.0 km37-3=34 km Shower depthgiven500.0 m500 m Index of refraction, icegiven Cherenkov anglederived deg Nadir angle to event surface exit pointchosen8080 deg Boresight ice intersection range derived km Required angle of inc., ice-firn boundaryderived deg Refracted zenith anglederived deg

Comparisons Between Simulations (cont) Neutrino energyassumed 1.E191.E19eV yassumed Reference Energygiven1.E121.E12eV reference frequencygiven1.15E91.15E9Hz Boundaries of frequency bandsgiven same Peak field strength at 1m, band 1derived V/m Peak field strength at 1m, band 2derived V/m Peak field strength at 1m, band 3derived V/m Peak field strength at 1m, band 4derived V/m Shower rays slant range to surfacederived m Attenuation factor, band 1derived Attenuation factor, band 2derived0.667(indep. of Attenuation factor, band 3derived0.619freq.) Attenuation factor, band 4derived0.513

Comparisons Between Simulations (cont) Refractive index of firn at surfacegiven Angle of incidence below firn surfacederived deg Firn transmission coefficientderived deg Modified surface trans. coeff. derived Modified surface trans. coeff.derived Transmitted field strength, ref. to d=1m, ch1 derived V/m Transmitted field strength, ref. to d=1m, ch2derived V/m Transmitted field strength, ref. to d=1m, ch3derived V/m Transmitted field strength, ref. to d=1m, ch4derived V/m

[V  ] eff for Full ANITA Discrepancy either factor of ~30 in sensitivity at low energies OR ~1/2 order of magnitude in threshold Agreement at high energies looks promising

Nailing Down Source of Difference between MC’s a high priority Since we have shown close agreement for a given event, discrepancy (if not due to bugs) must come from an input distribution or function, such as:  Ice map – compare effective ice depth, volume  y  Modeling Askaryan pulse  Crust density profile  Trigger simulation  Antenna response  Secondaries Comparing plots with Stephen’s may provide clues

Conclusions Simulation is benefiting from more people running the code, stretching it different ways  More features being added  Bugs being flushed out Given that we agree for a given event, I think discrepancy between two simulations most likely to be identified if we concentrate on input distributions/functions

Backup Slides

Secondary Interactions Thanks to Fenfang for getting these numbers with the latest code yesterday.

The Askaryan Signal: Electric Field Electric field emitted at interaction: For salt (from personal communication w/ J. Alvarez Muniz in Fall 2003)  C=1.10£10 -7, 0 =1300 MHz,  » 1.5 Compare to ice (J. Alvarez Muniz, astro- ph/ )  C=2.53£10 -7, 0 =1150 MHz,  =1.44

The Askaryan Signal: Cone Width Width of Cerenkov cone (astro-ph/ , astro-ph/ , Phys.Lett.B434,396 (1998)):  Material dependence  Index of refraction  Shower length

The Signal: Cone Width (cont) Phys.Lett.B434, 396(1998): Beyond parameterization (  >7), scaling by 7.5% per decade. Need theorists to come up with concise instructions for simulating the Askaryan signal, complete for all relevant media