Neutrino Astronomy In Greenland and Antartica

Not all telescopes use light to observe the universe. Some, like ice cubes, the RadioNeutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G) and the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) look for neutrinos from distant, extragalactic sources by detecting their interactions with the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets. Neutrinos are subatomic particles that weakly interact with matter. They have no electric charge and very little mass. Because they are generally not affected by matter and can pass through dense matter without being absorbed or deflected, they remain unchanged from their source. Since neutrinos can travel directly from their source they act as a messenger from distant and exotic astrophysical sources.
Neutrino astronomy looks to detect neutrinos from the Milky Way Galaxy, as well as other galaxies, and from supernovae to observe the energy unchanged from the source. The July general meeting presentation will discuss neutrino observatories. IceCube, in Antartica, is a particle detector buried beneath the surface of ice and extends to about 2,500 meters deep. PUEO is a detector made of radio dishes and will fly above the Antarctic ice in a ballon while using the ice below as a giant detector. RNO-G will be ground based, made up of 35 radio detectors spread over 1.25 km grid.
During the July General Meeting, our presenters will discuss what neutrinos are, why they are useful for astronomy, and how we try to observe them. We will have a trio of presenters to introduce us to the latest in Neutrino Astronomy, Philip Windischhofer, Anna Kofman, and Christie Welling. Philipp Windischhofer obtained his PhD from the University of Oxford working on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. As a postdoc at the University of Chicago he is currently working on data analysis and instrumentation development for the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland. Anna Kofman obtained her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania developing instrumentation for the Simons Observatory, a cosmic microwave background telescope in Chile. She is currently working on the construction of the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations as a postdoc at the University of Chicago. Christoph Welling was a PhD student at Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron in Germany working on simulations and data analysis for the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland and is now a postdoc at the University of Chicago working on simulations for the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations.