Questions and Answers

1) Any chance that any artifacts from Admiral Byrd's solo stay at the South Pole can be photographed? I read his book, Alone, and was deeply moved by his strength and endurance. Any data on temperature and weather conditions at the time of his stay at the pole would make for part of an interesting lecture.

I have seen no artifacts from Byrd's flight here. I have seen commemorations from the flight. At McMurdo, there is a cabin built by Scott in his futile attempt to be the first to reach the pole. The cabin is very well preserved with artifacts inside.

2) Are there any seismic recording stations where you are? For earthquakes?

Yes, there is. The station measures earthquakes throughout the world. It is always operational. There are plans for it to be of the monitoring system to detect nuclear tests.

3) Why can’t you send your data from the detectors via a radio frequency, (a miniature radio transmitter) link instead of fiber optics? Maybe it is too wet and the pressure too high for reliability.

We need to send data at very high rates. I believe radio waves do not penetrate two kilometers of ice. That is why ships must use sonar. We cannot use sonar, as our data rate is too high.

4) Is there data on the ultraviolet light reaching the earth where you are? What precautions are taken for UV there and what works best? How many solar neutrinos vs. cosmic neutrinos do you expect to get? Is there a correlation between numbers of solar neutrinos and UV?

We are affected by the ozone hole, so that we are unprotected from UV light. We cover ourselves and wear sunscreen. What is most important is to shield our eyes from UV rays by wearing plastic lens. UV rays do not reach our detector as the detectors are sufficiently down in the ice. The UV rays are absorbed. Our experiment does not detect solar neutrinos as we cannot detect neutrinos with that low of energy. I do not know if there is a correlation between solar neutrinos and UV rays. It would be very difficult to measure, as solar neutrino experiments typically measure one neutrino per day.

5) How can I get to go to the South Pole and be involved in research?
Look at Raytheon's page

December 22, 2000:
From Ed Pascuzzi
6) Lastly, what is it like getting accustomed to the continual light there? Is it a problem sleeping? Also, how do you determine time zones there? Is there simply one time zone (as it would be nonsensical to be able to walk around at the pole and have to walk through dozens of different zones)?

It is very odd always seeing bright light. To have a good sleeping pattern, it is very important to go to bed at the same time. Our rooms are very dark so there is no problem sleeping. What I find strange is that the sun is always at the same angle. I have great difficulty trying to look at the sun and tell the time. There is no landmark in the distance to create a preferred direction.

We use New Zealand time at the pole. The reason is that we are in direct communication with McMurdo Base Camp, which is in direct communication with Christchurch, New Zealand. Having all three regions at the same time makes the interaction between the three places much easier. New Zealand time is twenty-one hours ahead of Pacific Time. We will be the first to enjoy the real start of the millennium - 2001.

In the winter, the pole often switches to Mountain Time. This time facilitates communications with the Raytheon Polar Services who is responsible for running the National Science Foundation polar program. Their operations center is located in Boulder, Colorado.

From Jon Alexander
7) In your December 15 entry you say that you'll give a pole photo to the first person who successfully answers the question of why there is a downward ramp to the pole dome. I imagine someone has already given you the answer, but I'll give it a try anyway: I think I read somewhere quite a few years ago that the facility is slowly being buried by the snow -- which is why the ramp goes down to the entrance. Is that correct?

Yes, and you get a photo. There is almost no snow here in the Pole. We are living in a desert. However, there is drifting snow. The dome traps the snow. No matter how hard people try, the dome will be buried. It is almost like the situation in the Japanese movie, "Women of the Dunes" where a man must spend his life keeping the sand from overwhelming his village. New buildings are built on stilts. Even the stilts still trap the snow. There is a new building being built to house the future program. This building is built on stilts to minimize the drifts. Even being elevated, it will be buried. The new operations center can be raised two times, when the snow reaches the first level.

January 31, 2001
From the students of Ted Zaleskiewicz and Tim Savisky in their Natural Science course in the University of Pittsburgh.
8) What new sorts of things do the AMANDA folks hope to discover?

First, we have been able to observe neutrinos with an ice detector. This validates the technique and lets us proceed to the next phase. We have convinced the National Science Foundation that it is worthwhile to build a much bigger detector to detect high energy neutrinos. This project is called IceCube.

With the present detector, we hope to see neutrinos that originate outside our solar system. People have detected neutrinos from the Sun. We want to know if we can measure neutrinos from gamma ray bursters. These violent explosions send high energy gamma rays to the Earth. We want to discover if certain areas of the sky send neutrinos. Another area of research is to look for particles called "WIMPS". This acronym stands for "weakly ionizing massive particles." These particles, which have been postulated by some high energy particle theorists, could sink to the center of the Earth and then annihilate into neutrinos.

9) Is there a certain reason the South Pole was selected -- as opposed to the North Pole?

The North Pole cannot be used as a site as it is only made of ice. Since it is ice, it is constantly moving. In fact, sometimes the ice breaks up and there is only water at the North Pole. We chose the South Pole for several reasons. First, it has a deep level of ice and is a place where there is electricity, food, and housing for us. We can fly there and place our equipment. We do not need to be at the pole to do our experiment. We only need ice and logistical support. We could do the experiment in deep water. There are several attempts to this in the Mediterranean. The advantage that we have is that we have a solid surface to work. We can easily bring power and signals to the detector. Working on a floating platform requires much different technology.

10) What does MAPO stand for?

MAPO stands for "The Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory." Martin A. Pomerantz was the first true Antarctic astronomer. He first foresaw the potential of the South Pole in 1964, while working on a cosmic ray experiment, and quickly returned to make some solar observations. I n 1979, he made the first serious solar observations from the Pole. The MAPO building was dedicated in the 1995 season. (This answer was copied from astro.uchicago.edu/cara/. That web site is an excellent place to learn about other science at the pole.)

11) Can you give an example of the reaction that causes a neutrino to "make" a muon? Does it have to be a muon neutrino (to conserve lepton number)?

Yes, lepton number and lepton flavor are conserved. Lepton number states that the number of leptons in the final state and initial state are the same. Lepton flavor conservation states that the number of types of leptons is the same in the final and initial state. That means that if there is one muon type lepton in the initial state, then there must be net one muon type lepton in the final state. (There can be additional anti-leptons and leptons, which cancel each other out). I spent almost ten years of my life looking for lepton violation and could not find one. The searches were almost sensitive enough for one violation out of 1 trillion occurrences.

The typical reaction is for a neutrino to strike iron in the earth. The neutrino changes into a muon and a W. The W is absorbed and then breaks up the nucleus to lots of protons, neutrons and pions. The iron nucleus is needed to balance momentum and energy in the reaction. The neutrino cannot turn into a muon by itself. If the neutrino is a muon neutrino then it must produce a muon to balance lepton number.

12) Can you explain - - at least a little bit -- about just what is "going-on" at http://amanda.berkeley.edu/www/muon_anim.gif?

In that picture, you see four white lines. Each line represents a string of modules. The small white horizontal line shows the location of a phototube. Each colored circle represents a phototube that detected a light particle or photon. The color indicates the relative time with red representing the earliest time and violet the latest. (It is using the order of the rainbow.) I am guessing that the number is a quantitative representation of the time. Using these numbers, a trackfitter, tries to fit a straight line.

The light blue line with an arrow shows the path of the reconstructed muon. As you can see, the muon comes from below the earth so the muon must be produced by a neutrino. The red lines show where the light particle originated and which phototube it struck.

13) How are wastes disposed of at the South Pole?

Recycling is a very big effort at the Pole. Wherever you go, you will find bins to sort your trash. All trash and debris is stored and then flown back to McMurdo. At McMurdo, the boxes are shipped to a recycling center in the United States. Sorting is done in categories such as paper, plastic, food waste, and wood. Water and human waste are dumped in a hole in the ground. The Antarctic treaty allows that for inland bases. Bases on the coast must treat their waste.

14) Does anybody live there year round?

Yes, they do. Around 50 people stay there. Once the last flight leaves (around February 15), they have no physical contact with the outside world until around October. It is simply too cold to fly a plane. Usually, people only stay at the pole for one year and then go back home. You might have heard about a doctor who was diagnosed with cancer when she was there. That time there was a special drop of supplies by parachute. It was deemed too dangerous to land a plane then.

15) How is the true South Pole position measured?

This is a good question and I cannot answer it. Several of us discussed the problem and could not figure out how it was done. I saw the tripod that was used to measure the pole. However, I did not see the instrument. One way to do it is to measure the angle of the sun above the horizon. At the pole, the angle should be the same for the whole day. I do not know if this was the method used.

16) Did you ever get to see the Sun Dogs while on your trip?

Unfortunately, I did not. I saw the sun halo on only one day.

17) What are the qualifications of a person to go to Antarctic?

My qualifications were that I belonged to the AMANDA collaboration and that I would do useful things at the Pole. I needed to have a comprehensive physical. The physical included detailed items such as making sure that my cholesterol and blood pressure were fine. I also needed a full set of dental x-rays. All usual dental work had to be done. They did not want us to have dental problems, as there are no dentists in Antarctica. Because I am older than 50, I needed to take a cardiac stress test. As the base was at 10,000 feet evaluation, you have to be in good shape to work there. It takes several days for your body to get used to the high elevation.

People, other than scientists working on their projects, can get jobs there. There are many construction workers. There are also jobs for people with other skills. These include cooks and people with general science training. There also is a position called GA9. These people do many different tasks. The qualifications are people who like to work hard. GA9s had to pass the same medical tests as I did. If you want to stay for the winter, you need to take a psychological test.

The company that runs the operations at the South Pole is called Raytheon Polar services. You can find more information about them and look for jobs at rpsc.raytheon.com.

Teachers should look for opportunities at Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic (TEA).


Howard Matis
South Pole

Index for Howard's trip