Abstract Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Neutrino Radio Detection with Vector Antennas

This thesis focuses on the detection of Askar’yan radio pulses induced by ultra-high energy cosmic neutrino (UHECv) interactions in Antarctic ice. The UHECv's are the most energetic particles known to exist, but astrophysical phenomena capable of accelerating them to extreme energies, which are in the 10^20 to 10^23 eV range, are still not known. A vector antenna developed at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) in Uppsala has been considered to be used as an UHECv detector. Simulations have been made to determine the pulse shape of the received signal. Different properties of the signal have been investigated, to determine if other characteristics than the signal amplitude can be used to improve the detectability. To know how an UHECv induced radio pulse would look like is important when, among other things, constructing a trigger system for the vector antenna. The simulations made in this thesis prove that the vector antenna can detect a solitary broadband electromagnetic pulse and that the received information can be used to find different characteristics of the radiation. An antenna equivalent to the radiation source has been sought for future use in test measurements, and some suggestions have been made