Measurement of Acoustic Attenuation in South Pole Ice
Using the South Pole Acoustic Test Setup (SPATS) and a retrievable transmitter deployed in holes drilled for the IceCube experiment, we have measured the attenuation of acoustic signals by South Pole ice at depths between 190 m and 500 m. Three data sets, using different acoustic sources, have been...
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Format: | Text |
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arXiv
2010
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Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1004.1694 https://arxiv.org/abs/1004.1694 |
Summary: | Using the South Pole Acoustic Test Setup (SPATS) and a retrievable transmitter deployed in holes drilled for the IceCube experiment, we have measured the attenuation of acoustic signals by South Pole ice at depths between 190 m and 500 m. Three data sets, using different acoustic sources, have been analyzed and give consistent results. The method with the smallest systematic uncertainties yields an amplitude attenuation coefficient alpha = 3.20 \pm 0.57 km^(-1) between 10 and 30 kHz, considerably larger than previous theoretical estimates. Expressed as an attenuation length, the analyses give a consistent result for lambda = 1/alpha of ~1/300 m with 20% uncertainty. No significant depth or frequency dependence has been found. : 17 pages, 12 figures, published in Astroparticle Physics, 2010 |
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