Prospects for a radio air-shower detector at the South Pole

IceCube is not only the largest neutrino telescope but also one of the world's most competitive instruments for studying cosmic rays in the PeV to EeV regime where the transition from galactic to extra-galactic sources should occur. It records air showers with the ground sampling stations of IceTop and the in-ice optical modules of IceCube. Further augmenting this observatory with an array of sensors in the 10-100MHz regime that observe the radio emission from air showers will yield complementary information on the shower development. Such a triple-technology observatory should significantly improve the understanding of cosmic rays and enhance many aspects of its physics reach. Here we present first results from two exploratory radio setups deployed at the South Pole. Noise measurements from data taken in two consecutive seasons show a very good agreement of the predicted and observed response of the antennas which were designed specifically for this purpose. The radio background is found to be highly dom...