The design and flight of the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO)
Sources of cosmic rays at ultrahigh energies (UHE, $\gtrsim$ 1 EeV) are anticipated to give rise to neutrinos at similar energies by production via propagation interactions either within the source region or on cosmological scales. Measurements of the neutrino flux, flavor, and energy provide significant insight into those underlying processes governing UHE cosmic ray acceleration and propagation. Detecting neutrinos at these energies requires immense detector volumes due to their low predicted flux. We present the balloon-borne mission PUEO (Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations) which is an antenna array designed to detect the Askaryan emission from UHE neutrino interactions in the Antarctic ice. This paper reports on the design considerations and implementations for constructing PUEO, from the design parameters to the as-built validations.
Authors
- Austin Lee Cummings (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9012-7851)
- P. W. Gorham (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0923-9363)
- A. G. Vieregg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4528-9886)
- Lucas Beaufore
- Ryan James Nichol (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0557-0443)
- D. Besson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5450-1757)
- K. Couberly (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-3648)
- William Luszczak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3085-0674)
- J. Alvarez-Muñiz
- M. Betts (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9174-7148)
- Christian Hornhuber
- D. Seckel
- P. Dasgupta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9559-4803)
- P. Allison
- J. Flaherty
- B. Chamanbahar
- Dana Kullgren (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0774-1325)
- C. Y. Kuo
- L. Cremonesi
- J. Alfaro
- J.J. Beatty
- A. Connolly
- A. Basharina-Freshville
- A. Zeolla
- D. Braun
- A. Jung
- E. Zas
- P. Chen
- C. Godden
- E. Oberla
- Y. Q. Chen
- P. Windischhofer
- D. Radomski
- S. C. Mackey
- H. Barnett
- C. Welling
- J. M. Clem
- R. Scrandis
- K. Hughes
- T. Anderson
- L. Lisalda
- K. McBride
- Q. Abarr
- S. -H. Wang
- Z. Martin
- J. Yao
- J. Nam
- M. F. H. Seikh
- J. Shiao
- A. Hynous
- PUEO Collaboration
- S. Ali
- S. Agarwal
- R. Bose
- G. Simburger
- H. Pumphrey
- T. C. Liu
- J. Tutt
- A. Nozdrina
- D. Washington
- J. Hoffman
- D. A. Newmark
- A. Novikov
- T. Coakley
- A. M. Kofman
- Y. Ku
- S. A. Wissel
- C. Miki
- C. Xie
- C. Deaconu
- R. Young
- B. F. Rauch
- P. Linton
Publication Details
- Journal
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Published
- 2026-10-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2610.35675
- Primary Topic
- Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
- Type
- preprint