4 research outputs found
Discovering the highest energy neutrinos with the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO)
The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) is a NASA Long-Duration Balloon Mission that has been selected for concept development. PUEO has unprecedented sensitivity to ultra-high energy neutrinos above 1018 eV. PUEO will be sensitive to both Askaryan emission from neutrino-induced cascades in Antarctic ice and geomagnetic emission from upward-going air showers that are a result of tau neutrino interactions. PUEO is also especially well-suited for point source and transient searches. Compared to its predecessor ANITA, PUEO achieves better than an order-of-magnitude improvement in sensitivity and lowers the energy threshold for detection, by implementing a coherent phased array trigger, adding more channels, optimizing the detection bandwidth, and implementing real-time filtering. Here we discuss the science reach and plans for PUEO, leading up to a 2024 launch
The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO): a white paper
The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) long-duration balloon experiment is designed to have world-leading sensitivity to ultrahigh-energy neutrinos at energies above 1 EeV. Probing this energy region is essential for understanding the extreme-energy universe at all distance scales. PUEO leverages experience from and supersedes the successful Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) program, with an improved design that drastically improves sensitivity by more than an order of magnitude at energies below 30 EeV. PUEO will either make the first significant detection of or set the best limits on ultrahigh-energy neutrino fluxes
The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO): A White Paper
The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) long-duration balloon
experiment is designed to have world-leading sensitivity to ultrahigh-energy
neutrinos at energies above 1 EeV. Probing this energy region is essential for
understanding the extreme-energy universe at all distance scales. PUEO
leverages experience from and supersedes the successful Antarctic Impulsive
Transient Antenna (ANITA) program, with an improved design that drastically
improves sensitivity by more than an order of magnitude at energies below 30
EeV. PUEO will either make the first significant detection of or set the best
limits on ultrahigh-energy neutrino fluxes.Comment: 37 pages, 17 figures. Minor updates, version submitted to JINS
Data Downloaded via Parachute from a NASA Super-Pressure Balloon
In April 2023, the superBIT telescope was lifted to the Earth’s stratosphere by a helium-filled super-pressure balloon to acquire astronomical imaging from above (99.5% of) the Earth’s atmosphere. It was launched from New Zealand and then, for 40 days, circumnavigated the globe five times at a latitude 40 to 50 degrees south. Attached to the telescope were four “drs” (Data Recovery System) capsules containing 5 TB solid state data storage, plus a gnss receiver, Iridium transmitter, and parachute. Data from the telescope were copied to these, and two were dropped over Argentina. They drifted 61 km horizontally while they descended 32 km, but we predicted their descent vectors within 2.4 km: in this location, the discrepancy appears irreducible below ∼2 km because of high speed, gusty winds and local topography. The capsules then reported their own locations within a few metres. We recovered the capsules and successfully retrieved all of superBIT’s data despite the telescope itself being later destroyed on landing