Collaborative Research: WoU-MMA: RNO-G Data Analysis in the U.S. 2026-2029

The universe is filled with invisible, ghostlike particles called neutrinos that travel across the cosmos carrying information about the most violent and energetic events in the Universe. Things like exploding stars, colliding supermassive objects, and the most powerful natural particle accelerators in existence. Detecting these particles helps answer a fundamental question that has puzzled scientists for over a century: where do the highest-energy particles in the universe come from, and how does nature accelerate them to energies far beyond anything humans can build on Earth. This award will support the development of simulations and data pipelines for the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G), a radio-based neutrino telescope buried in the Greenlandic ice sheet. RNO-G looks for the faint radio flash produced when one of these ultra-high-energy neutrinos strikes the ice. These tools are essential for the collaboration's broader efforts to analyze detector data and understand instrument performance. It will also support the development of the next generation of scientists. RNO-G is an array of radio-instrumented stations deployed at Summit Station in Greenland, designed to detect Askaryan radio emission from neutrino interactions in polar ice at energies above 10 PeV. Under this award, simulations and data pipelines are developed in support of the collaboration's efforts to analyze RNO-G data and characterize detector performance. On the simulation side, custom modules are developed, incorporating station-specific geometry, calibrated detector response, and state-of-the-art models of Askaryan emission, neutrino interactions, and radio propagation through glacial ice. On the data pipeline side, Level 2 processing tools are developed that compute reconstruction quantities from calibrated detector readout, including interferometric source localization, signal-to-noise characterization, and coherently summed waveforms. These simulation and pipeline products are necessary for the collaboration's future searches for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos with RNO-G will be built. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.