The design of the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO)

The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) is a long-duration balloon experiment launching in December 2025 that aims to detect ultrahigh energy (>1 EeV) neutrinos via their Askaryan emission from interactions in Antarctic ice. The experiment is the successor to the ANtarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) project, optimizing the previous design with an increased number of dual-polarized, quad-ridged horn antennas, and deployable sinuous antennas designed for Low Frequencies (LF). In addition, the triggering system will utilize delay-and-sum beamforming to achieve an efficient trigger at lower signal-to-noise ratios. The 96 Main Instrument (MI) antennas measure horizontally and vertically polarized signals within the bandwidth of 300-1200 MHz. The signal is amplified and filtered which is designed to reduce noise while isolating the target signal before being sent to the Data Acquisition (DAQ) system for further processing. This talk will discuss the hardware design and implementation of the PUEO experiment which is scheduled to launch late 2025 from Antarctica.