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Radio emission from airplanes as observed with RNO-G

RNO-G Collaboration, :, S. Agarwal, J. A. Aguilar, N. Alden, S. Ali, P. Allison, M. Betts, D. Besson, A. Bishop, O. Botner, S. Bouma, S. Buitink, R. Camphyn, J. Chan, S. Chiche, B. A. Clark, A. Coleman, K. Couberly, S. de Kockere, K. D. de Vries, C. Deaconu, P. Giri, C. Glaser, T. Glüsenkamp, H. Gui, A. Hallgren, S. Hallmann, J. C. Hanson, K. Helbing, B. Hendricks, J. Henrichs, N. Heyer, C. Hornhuber, E. Huesca Santiago, K. Hughes, A. Jaitly, T. Karg, A. Karle, J. L. Kelley, J. Kimo, C. Kopper, M. Korntheuer, M. Kowalski, I. Kravchenko, R. Krebs, M. Kugelmeier, R. Lahmann, C. -H. Liu, M. J. Marsee, Z. S. Meyers, K. Mulrey, M. Muzio, A. Nelles, A. Novikov, A. Nozdrina, E. Oberla, B. Oeyen, N. Punsuebsay, L. Pyras, M. Ravn, A. Rifaie, D. Ryckbosch, O. Schlemper, F. Schlüter, O. Scholten, D. Seckel, M. F. H. Seikh, J. Stachurska, J. Stoffels, S. Toscano, D. Tosi, J. Tutt, D. J. Van Den Broeck, N. van Eijndhoven, A. G. Vieregg, A. Vijai, C. Welling, D. R. Williams, P. Windischhofer, S. Wissel, R. Young, A. Zink

TL;DR

The paper investigates radio emissions from airplanes observed by RNO-G to understand their dual role as both background and calibration sources. It characterizes impulsive versus continuous signals, develops methods to isolate a clean impulsive set, and demonstrates how ADS-B data can anchor aircraft positions for calibration. A key result is that inter-station timing spreads around $270\ \mathrm{ns}$ (68% level) to $490\ \mathrm{ns}$ (95% level), indicating clock stability dominates timing uncertainty and that LPDA positions can be constrained to about $0.5\ \mathrm{m}$ using airplane signals. These findings support a calibration framework for RNO-G and offer pathways to extend similar approaches to future arrays such as IceCube-Gen2, while also quantifying airplane-induced backgrounds for neutrino searches.

Abstract

This paper describes how intentional and unintentional radio emission from airplanes is recorded with the Radio Neutrino Observatory Greenland (RNO-G). We characterize the received signals and define a procedure to extract a clean set of impulsive signals. These signals are highly suitable for instrument calibration, also for future experiments. A set of signals is used to probe the timing precision of RNO-G in-situ, which is found to match expectations. We also discuss the impact of these signals on the ability to detect neutrinos with RNO-G.

Radio emission from airplanes as observed with RNO-G

TL;DR

The paper investigates radio emissions from airplanes observed by RNO-G to understand their dual role as both background and calibration sources. It characterizes impulsive versus continuous signals, develops methods to isolate a clean impulsive set, and demonstrates how ADS-B data can anchor aircraft positions for calibration. A key result is that inter-station timing spreads around (68% level) to (95% level), indicating clock stability dominates timing uncertainty and that LPDA positions can be constrained to about using airplane signals. These findings support a calibration framework for RNO-G and offer pathways to extend similar approaches to future arrays such as IceCube-Gen2, while also quantifying airplane-induced backgrounds for neutrino searches.

Abstract

This paper describes how intentional and unintentional radio emission from airplanes is recorded with the Radio Neutrino Observatory Greenland (RNO-G). We characterize the received signals and define a procedure to extract a clean set of impulsive signals. These signals are highly suitable for instrument calibration, also for future experiments. A set of signals is used to probe the timing precision of RNO-G in-situ, which is found to match expectations. We also discuss the impact of these signals on the ability to detect neutrinos with RNO-G.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 17 sections, 2 equations, 13 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. RNO-G
  3. Calibration needs
  4. Airplanes recorded over RNO-G
  5. Flight tracker and information available
  6. Aircraft statistics
  7. Observed signals in individual stations
  8. Selected flights to highlight performance
  9. Characterizing airplane signals
  10. Event classes for impulsive events
  11. Airplanes as a background to neutrino searches
  12. Airplanes as calibration source for antenna positions
  13. Multi-station coincidences and absolute station timing
  14. Selection of multi-station coincidences
  15. Absolute timing between stations
  16. ...and 2 more sections

Figures (13)

  • Figure 1: Left: Location of Summit Station in Greenland with approximate flight paths between Japan and Europe. The colormap (white to red) indicates the density of aircraft locations seen by the ADS-B receiver up to $\sim$350 km around Summit Station. Right: Zoom on RNO-G array (every point represents one station as shown in \ref{['fig:rno-g-station']}) together with all recorded flight paths from July 2023. The airplanes landing on the skiway at Summit Station are highlighted in red.
  • Figure 2: Schematic view of an RNO-G station. Each station has 24 antennas, either LPDA, Hpol or Vpol (see text for details) and three in-situ pulsers for calibration purposes. LPDAs are deployed in shallow trenches while Hpol and Vpol antennas are lowered into deep dry boreholes. Each point in the array map of \ref{['fig:greenland_map_with_adsb_positions']} corresponds to one of these stations.
  • Figure 3: Key transmitting antennas as potential RF sources on a commercial aircraft, see e.g. Airplane_forum for a detailed explanation of all acronyms. In case of redundancy only one position is indicated per probe type. The turbines are also expected to generate measurable signals LOFAR_Airplane.
  • Figure 4: Statistics of passing flights recorded per month by the plane tracker at Summit Station. Periods of missing data are marked with the gray bands. Left: All airplanes broadcasting position information passing RNO-G at different distances as function of time. Right: All airplanes landing and starting at the Summit Camp skiway. The fraction that is made up of the largest planes (LC130) is highlighted in blue.
  • Figure 5: Overview of the signals of two types of airplanes. Left: Maximum signal amplitude, impulsivity ($I$), observed narrow-band frequency contamination ($CW$), and aircraft distance as function of time (UTC) for signals recorded in station 11 during the passage of three commercial airplanes on 08/30/2022. In the location displayed by the inset, the second and third track are shifted to the top right slightly -- in reality all three tracks follow the same path. Impulsivity is calculated after CW removal, see text for additional details. Right: Same quantities for an LC130 cargo plane landing at Summit Station.
  • ...and 8 more figures