νSpaceSim: A Comprehensive Simulation Package for Modeling Neutrino-induced Optical and Radio Signals

Cosmic rays accelerated to ultra-high energies in astrophysical sources are expected to produce very-high energy (~ PeV) neutrinos through interactions within their sources or their surrounding environment. Leveraging the Earth as a neutrino converter, suborbital and space-based instruments will be able to detect these very-high energy neutrinos through optical and/or radio signals generated by the extensive air showers of emerging leptons. νSpaceSim is a comprehensive, end-to-end simulation package for modeling all stages of this process – namely, neutrino propagation through the Earth, the emerging lepton distributions, extensive air shower development, optical and/or radio signal generation, and detection. The initial development on νSpaceSim focused on supporting calculations of an instrument’s sensitivity to the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux at very-high energies. This version of the software has been publicly released and is available through Github. Continued development of νSpaceSim is focused on supporting calculations for neutrinos from transient astrophysical sources and is anticipated to be publicly release in the near future.