Discussion about a Standard Definition of the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) for Radio Signals of ultra-high-energy Particles (ARENA2022)

Abstract

Signal-to-noise ratios are a widely used concept for astroparticle radio detectors, such as air-shower radio arrays for cosmic-ray measurements or detectors searching for radio signals induced by neutrino interactions in ice. Nonetheless, no common standards or methods are established for the determination of the signal-to-noise ratio: values cannot be compared between experiments, and for the same signal and noise, various methods differ by large factors on the signal-to-noise ratio. This was the motivation to discuss a community-specific standardization at the ARENA conference 2022. No agreement on a common method to calculate signal-to-noise ratios was reached, however, awareness was raised that signal-to-noise ratios need to be well defined in any publications. This includes providing sufficient information on the procedure used to determine the signal-to-noise ratio, in addition to simply stating the formula. Even when using the same definition of the signal-to-noise ratio, there is still a significant dependence on the procedure of calculation, e.g., the signal-to-noise ratio of waveforms containing only background can vary significantly depending on the size of the time interval used as signal search window. To facilitate the interpretation of any signal-to-noise ratios in a specific study, the recommendation is to also state the mean value of the signal-to-noise ratio that the used method yields when applied to noise used in the study, e.g., the radio background measured by the corresponding experiment.