162 research outputs found
Comparative study of radio pulses from simulated hadron-, electron-, and neutrino-initiated showers in ice in the GeV-PeV range
High energy particle showers produce coherent Cherenkov radio emission in
dense, radio-transparent media such as cold ice. Using PYTHIA and GEANT
simulation tools, we make a comparative study among electromagnetic (EM) and
hadronic showers initiated by single particles and neutrino showers initiated
by multiple particles produced at the neutrino-nucleon event vertex. We include
all the physics processes and do a complete 3-D simulation up to 100 TeV for
all showers and to 1 PeV for electron and neutrino induced showers. We
calculate the radio pulses for energies between 100 GeV and 1 PeV and find
hadron showers, and consequently neutrino showers, are not as efficient below 1
PeV at producing radio pulses as the electromagnetic showers. The agreement
improves as energy increases, however, and by a PeV and above the difference
disappears. By looking at the 3-D structure of the showers in time, we show
that the hadronic showers are not as compact as the EM showers and hence the
radiation is not as coherent as EM shower emission at the same frequency. We
show that the ratio of emitted pulse strength to shower tracklength is a
function only of a single, coherence parameter, independent of species and
energy of initiating particle.Comment: a few comments added, to bo published in PRD Nov. issue, 10 pages, 3
figures in tex file, 3 jpg figures in separate files, and 1 tabl
A Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission at 611 MHz
We have constructed and operated the Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio
Emission (STARE) to detect transient astronomical radio emission at 611 MHz
originating from the sky over the northeastern United States. The system is
sensitive to transient events on timescales of 0.125 s to a few minutes, with a
typical zenith flux density detection threshold of approximately 27 kJy. During
18 months of around-the-clock observing with three geographically separated
instruments, we detected a total of 4,318,486 radio bursts. 99.9% of these
events were rejected as locally generated interference, determined by requiring
the simultaneous observation of an event at all three sites for it to be
identified as having an astronomical origin. The remaining 3,898 events have
been found to be associated with 99 solar radio bursts. These results
demonstrate the remarkably effective RFI rejection achieved by a coincidence
technique using precision timing (such as GPS clocks) at geographically
separated sites. The non-detection of extra-solar bursting or flaring radio
sources has improved the flux density sensitivity and timescale sensitivity
limits set by several similar experiments in the 1970s. We discuss the
consequences of these limits for the immediate solar neighborhood and the
discovery of previously unknown classes of sources. We also discuss other
possible uses for the large collection of 611 MHz monitoring data assembled by
STARE.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures; to appear in PAS
Single-Cycle High-Intensity Electromagnetic Pulse Generation in the Interaction of a Plasma Wakefield with Nonlinear Coherent Structures
The interaction of coherent nonlinear structures (such as sub-cycle solitons,
electron vortices and wake Langmuir waves) with a strong wake wave in a
collisionless plasma can be exploited in order to produce ultra-short
electromagnetic pulses. The electromagnetic field of a coherent nonlinear
structure is partially reflected by the electron density modulations of the
incident wake wave and a single-cycle high-intensity electromagnetic pulse is
formed. Due to the Doppler effect the length of this pulse is much shorter than
that of the coherent nonlinear structure. This process is illustrated with
two-dimensional Particle-in-Cell simulations. The considered laser-plasma
interaction regimes can be achieved in present day experiments and can be used
for plasma diagnostics.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Modulational instability in nonlocal Kerr-type media with random parameters
Modulational instability of continuous waves in nonlocal focusing and
defocusing Kerr media with stochastically varying diffraction (dispersion) and
nonlinearity coefficients is studied both analytically and numerically. It is
shown that nonlocality with the sign-definite Fourier images of the medium
response functions suppresses considerably the growth rate peak and bandwidth
of instability caused by stochasticity. Contrary, nonlocality can enhance
modulational instability growth for a response function with negative-sign
bands.Comment: 6 pages, 12 figures, revTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Oceanic Ambient Noise as a Background to Acoustic Neutrino Detection
Ambient noise measured in the deep ocean is studied in the context of a
search for signals from ultra-high energy cosmic ray neutrinos. The spectral
shape of the noise at the relevant high frequencies is found to be very stable
for an extensive data set collected over several months from 49 hydrophones
mounted near the bottom of the ocean at ~1600 m depth. The slopes of the
ambient noise spectra above 15 kHz are found to roll-off faster than the -6
dB/octave seen in Knudsen spectra. A model attributing the source to an uniform
distribution of surface noise that includes frequency-dependent absorption at
large depth is found to fit the data well up to 25 kHz. This depth dependent
model should therefore be used in analysis methods of acoustic neutrino pulse
detection that require the expected noise spectra.Comment: Minor changes. Submitted to PRD. 5 pages, 7 figure
Beam interactions in one-dimensional saturable waveguide arrays
The interaction between two parallel beams in one-dimensional discrete
saturable systems has been investigated using lithium niobate nonlinear
waveguide arrays. When the beams are separated by one channel and in-phase it
is possible to observe soliton fusion at low power levels. This new result is
confirmed numerically. By increasing the power, soliton-like propagation of
weakly-coupled beams occurs. When the beams are out-of-phase the most
interesting result is the existence of oscillations which resemble the recently
discovered Tamm oscillations.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Radiation Pressure Dominate Regime of Relativistic Ion Acceleration
The electromagnetic radiation pressure becomes dominant in the interaction of
the ultra-intense electromagnetic wave with a solid material, thus the wave
energy can be transformed efficiently into the energy of ions representing the
material and the high density ultra-short relativistic ion beam is generated.
This regime can be seen even with present-day technology, when an exawatt laser
will be built. As an application, we suggest the laser-driven heavy ion
collider.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
FORTE satellite constraints on ultra-high energy cosmic particle fluxes
The FORTE (Fast On-orbit Recording of Transient Events) satellite records
bursts of electromagnetic waves arising from near the Earth's surface in the
radio frequency (RF) range of 30 to 300 MHz with a dual polarization antenna.
We investigate the possible RF signature of ultra-high energy cosmic-ray
particles in the form of coherent Cherenkov radiation from cascades in ice. We
calculate the sensitivity of the FORTE satellite to ultra-high energy (UHE)
neutrino fluxes at different energies beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK)
cutoff. Some constraints on supersymmetry model parameters are also estimated
due to the limits that FORTE sets on the UHE neutralino flux. The FORTE
database consists of over 4 million recorded events to date, including in
principle some events associated with UHE neutrinos. We search for candidate
FORTE events in the period from September 1997 to December 1999. The candidate
production mechanism is via coherent VHF radiation from a UHE neutrino shower
in the Greenland ice sheet. We demonstrate a high efficiency for selection
against lightning and anthropogenic backgrounds. A single candidate out of
several thousand raw triggers survives all cuts, and we set limits on the
corresponding particle fluxes assuming this event represents our background
level.Comment: added a table, updated references and Figure 8, this version is
submitted to Phys. Rev.
Multi-filament structures in relativistic self-focusing
A simple model is derived to prove the multi-filament structure of
relativistic self-focusing with ultra-intense lasers. Exact analytical
solutions describing the transverse structure of waveguide channels with
electron cavitation, for which both the relativistic and ponderomotive
nonlinearities are taken into account, are presented.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Physical Review
Self-guiding of 100 TW Femtosecond Laser Pulses in Centimeter-scale Underdense Plasma
An experiment for studying laser self-guiding has been carried out for the
high power ultrashort pulse laser interaction with an underdense plasma slab.
Formation of an extremely long plasma channel and its bending are observed when
the laser pulse power is much higher than the critical power for relativistic
self-focusing. The long self-guiding channel formation is accompanied by
electron acceleration with a low transverse emittance and high electric
current. Particle-in-cell simulations show that laser bending occurs when the
accelerated electrons overtake the laser pulse and modify the refractive index
in the region in front of the laser pulse
- …