Searching for Neutrinos & Cosmic Rays and Studying Antarctic ice with the Askaryan Radio Array

Ultra-high energy neutrinos (>10 PeV) are unique messengers to the distant, high-energy universe,
as other particles like gamma rays and cosmic rays are deflected by magnetic fields, deterred by
space dust, or screened by interactions with the Cosmic Microwave Background on cosmic length scales. To detect these rare neutrinos, enormous detection volumes are required, and the Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) is a teraton detector at South Pole designed to meet this need. ARA searches for neutrinos by burying clusters of antennas up to 200m deep in the radio-clear Antarctic ice, and looking for the Askaryan radiation from neutrino-induced relativistic showers. Five stations have been deployed and are currently in a scientific observing mode, continuously monitoring 35% of the whole sky. In this talk, I will summarize ARA’s current analysis program, including our (1) search for a diffuse flux of neutrinos, (2) search for neutrinos associated with sources such as AGN, (3) search for radio emission from cosmic-rays, and (4) our studies of the Antarctic ice properties over kilometer baselines.