Cosmic Ray Observations in BEACON using Coincident Radio and Scintillator Detection

The Beamforming Elevated Array for COsmic Neutrinos (BEACON) is a proposed detector concept consisting of many phased radio antenna arrays placed on mountaintops, searching for the upgoing extensive air showers created by Earth-skimming tau neutrinos. Cosmic ray detection in radio utilizes the same geomagnetic emission process in their extensive air showers, allowing a cosmic ray search to help characterize BEACON's radio sensitivity to tau neutrinos. In 2023, a scintillator array was added to the prototype radio instrument to provide an additional trigger for cosmic rays. We have identified a robust sample of cosmic-ray candidate events in the radio channel, coincident with scintillator-triggered data. Presented here the methods used to verify and characterize these cosmic ray observations with the BEACON 2023 prototype.