Search for cosmic ultra-high energy neutrinos with ANITA-IV

The ANITA long-duration balloon payload is designed to search for radio pulses associated with interactions of cosmic ultra-high energy neutrinos in the Antarctic ice sheets. Neutrinos are the only other stable fundamental particles, along with photons, whose directions be traced directly back to their sources without significant deflection or energy loss. By successfully determining the trajectories of observed impulsive radio signals from the ice, ANITA offers the possibility of neutrino astronomy at the highest possible energies. This includes sources such as ultra-high energy cosmic rays which outside the 50-100 MPc range of the local epoch are otherwise expected to be opaque to conventional photometric methods. Detecting at an energy regime not probed by other similar projects, each iteration of the ANITA project provides insights and improved understanding of limitations on the observability of the universe. More »