Experimental Study of Acoustic Ultra-High-Energy Neutrino Detection

An existing array of underwater, large-bandwidth acoustic sensors has been used to study the detection of ultra-high-energy neutrinos in cosmic rays. Acoustic data from a subset of 7 hydrophones located at a depth of $\sim 1600$ m have been acquired for a total live time of 195 days. For the first time, a large sample of acoustic background events has been studied for the purpose of extracting signals from super-EeV showers. As a test of the technique, an upper limit for the flux of ultra-high-energy neutrinos is presented along with considerations relevant to the design of an acoustic array optimized for neutrino detection.