Electromagnetic Surface Wave Propagation Applicable to UltraHigh Energy Neutrino Detection

Neutrinos have no net charge and can not emit any Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation (VCR) but when they interact with a stationary medium such radiation is produced by the Askaryan effect. This radiation is peak at an angle θC from the motion axis, referred to as the Vavilov-Cherenkov (VC) angle. It has been proposed to use the lunar regolith or the ice sheet of Antarctica as a detector material for such neutrino interactions, but inorder to do so, the VCR emitted from deeply interacting neutrinos has to be dis-tinguished from other ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECR), which would typically interact very close to the surface. Since detection is done by antennas on and below the surface, the analytical study of the physics of electromagnetic surface waves and their propagation is presented. The charged particle shower is modelled by an inclined dipole at a depth h below a dielectric boundary fed by a stationary current, making it possible to simplify the problem by means of Fourier analysis and "conventional" antenna theory