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Observation of an Unusual Upward-going Cosmic-ray-like Event in the Third Flight of ANITA

We report on an upward traveling, radio-detected cosmic-ray-like impulsive event with characteristics closely matching an extensive air shower. This event, observed in the third flight of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA), a NASA-sponsored long-duration balloon payload, is consistent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2018-03
Main Authors: Gorham, P W, Rotter, B, Allison, P, Banerjee, O, Batten, L, Beatty, J J, Bechtol, K, Belov, K, Besson, D Z, Binns, W R, Bugaev, V, Cao, P, Chen, C C, Chen, C H, Chen, P, Clem, J M, Connolly, A, Cremonesi, L, Dailey, B, Deaconu, C, Dowkontt, P F, Fox, B D, Gordon, J W H, Hast, C, Hill, B, Hughes, K, Huang, J J, Hupe, R, Israel, M H, Javaid, A, Lam, J, Liewer, K M, Lin, S Y, Liu, T C, Ludwig, A, Macchiarulo, L, Matsuno, S, Miki, C, Mulrey, K, Nam, J, Naudet, C J, Nichol, R J, Novikov, A, Oberla, E, Olmedo, M, Prechelt, R, Prohira, S, Rauch, B F, Roberts, J M, Romero-Wolf, A, Russell, J W, Saltzberg, D, Seckel, D, Schoorlemmer, H, Shiao, J, Stafford, S, Stockham, J, Stockham, M, Strutt, B, Varner, G S, Vieregg, A G, Wang, S H, Wissel, S A
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Language:English
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Summary:We report on an upward traveling, radio-detected cosmic-ray-like impulsive event with characteristics closely matching an extensive air shower. This event, observed in the third flight of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA), a NASA-sponsored long-duration balloon payload, is consistent with a similar event reported in a previous flight. These events may be produced by the atmospheric decay of an upward-propagating \(\tau\)-lepton produced by a \(\nu_{\tau}\) interaction, although their relatively steep arrival angles create tension with the standard model (SM) neutrino cross section. Each of the two events have \(a~posteriori\) background estimates of \(\lesssim 10^{-2}\) events. If these are generated by \(\tau\)-lepton decay, then either the charged-current \(\nu_{\tau}\) cross section is suppressed at EeV energies, or the events arise at moments when the peak flux of a transient neutrino source was much larger than the typical expected cosmogenic background neutrinos.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1803.05088