ANOMALOUS UPWARD-GOING RADIO PULSES FROM ANTARCTIC ICE: COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE ANITA COSMIC RAY ANOMALY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR BEYOND-STANDARD-MODEL PHYSICS

This doctoral thesis presents comprehensive analysis of anomalous upward-going radio pulse events detected by the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment during 2006-2017, representing one of the most perplexing observations in contemporary particle physics. ANITA detected several cosmic ray events with emergence angles indicating upward propagation through Antarctic ice and Earth's interior, fundamentally inconsistent with Standard Model neutrino physics. At the inferred energies of approximately 0.6-1.0 exaelectronvolts, Standard Model neutrinos should be completely absorbed traversing thousands of kilometers of Earth matter, yet ANITA observed multiple upward-going events across independent flight campaigns.