scholarly journals Estimating the mass of cosmic rays by combining radio and muon measurements

2019 ◽  
Vol 216 ◽  
pp. 02002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa M. Holt

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is a radio detector at the Pierre Auger Observatory and it is dedicated to measure the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. AERA is co-located with the underground muon detectors of the Auger Muons and Infill for the Ground Array (AMIGA). This provides a perfect setup to experimentally test the benefits of combining muons and radio emission for estimating the primary mass. We have investigated this combination using air-shower simulations. We compared the performance for mass separation of this new method to alternative methods in which the electrons and muons are measured with particle detectors at the surface. Forshowers with zenith angles below 50° the new method is of comparable performance, and for showers more inclinedthan 50° it is clearly superior. Therefore, measuring the radio signal in addition to the muons significantly improves the mass sensitivity compared to techniques using solely particle measurements.

2019 ◽  
Vol 216 ◽  
pp. 02012
Author(s):  
T. Marshalkina ◽  
P.A. Bezyazeekov ◽  
N.M. Budnev ◽  
D. Chernykh ◽  
O. Fedorov ◽  
...  

The Tunka Radio Extension (Tunka-Rex) is a digital antenna array for the detection of radio emission from cosmic-ray air showers in the frequency band of 30 to 80 MHz and for primary energies above 100 PeV. The standard analysis of Tunka-Rex includes events with zenith angle of up to 50?. This cut is determined by the efficiency of the external trigger. However, due to the air-shower footprint increasing with zenith angle and due to the more efficient generation of radio emission (the magnetic field in the Tunka valley is almost vertical), there are a number of ultra-high-energy inclined events detected by Tunka-Rex. In this work we present a first analysis of a subset of inclined events detected by Tunka-Rex. We estimate the energies of the selected events and test the efficiency of Tunka-Rex antennas for detection of inclined air showers.


2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (supp01) ◽  
pp. 60-64
Author(s):  
T. HUEGE ◽  
H. FALCKE

As a basis for the interpretation of data gathered by LOPES and other experiments, we have carried out Monte Carlo simulations of geosynchrotron radio emission from cosmic ray air showers. The simulations, having been verified carefully with analytical calculations, reveal a wealth of information on the characteristics of the radio signal and their dependence on specific air shower parameters. In this article, we review the spatial characteristics of the radio emission, its predicted frequency spectrum and its dependence on important air shower parameters such as the shower zenith angle, the primary particle energy and the depth of the shower maximum, which can in turn be related to the nature of the primary particle.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2105 (1) ◽  
pp. 012018
Author(s):  
S Nonis ◽  
A Leisos ◽  
A Tsirigotis ◽  
G Bourlis ◽  
K Papageorgiou ◽  
...  

Abstract The Astroneu cosmic ray telescope is a distributed hybrid array consisting of both scintillator counters and RF antenna detectors used for the detection of extensive air showers (EAS). The array is deployed at the Hellenic Open University campus, on the outskirts of the urban area of Patras in Greece. In the present development phase, the Astroneu telescope includes two stations consisting of 3 scintillation detectors modules (SDM) and one RF antenna while a third station includes 3 particle detectors and 4 RF antennas (3SDM-4RF). In each station, the RF-detectors are operating receiving a common trigger upon a 3-fold coincidence between the particle detectors of the station. In this study we present recent results from the 3SDM-4RF autonomous station related to the estimation of the direction of the incoming cosmic air shower using only the timing information from the 4 RF detectors. The directions of the reconstructed showers using the RF timing are in agreement with the corresponding results using the SDMs timing as well as with the simulation predictions. This verifies that the RF signal emitted from EAS originating form Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR), can be detected even in areas with strong electromagnetic background.


2019 ◽  
Vol 216 ◽  
pp. 03006
Author(s):  
David Butler ◽  
Tim Huege ◽  
Olaf Scholten

When discussing radio emission from cosmic ray air showers we commonly make a number of assumptions regardingthe production and propagation physics. Incorporating all of these it should be possible to construct a forward model to predict the radio signal produced by an air shower from simple parameters, an application and generalisation of shower universality to radio emission. In terms of particle detection shower universality focuses on the one-dimensional longitudinal profile, counting only the number of particles. This appears insufficient in the context of radio emission, the particle cascade develops on the scale of traversed atmospheric depth while electromagnetic radiation scales with the geometric trajectories of the sources. Further a real shower extends several radio wavelengths in the lateral directionwhile analyses often assume a point source on the shower axis. Our simulation studies show an unanticipated complexity in the radio output responsible for around 10% variation in the signals. We are still in the process of identifying the relevant quantities and improving our analytical modeling accordingly.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (26) ◽  
pp. 1850153 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. B. Arbeletche ◽  
V. P. Gonçalves ◽  
M. A. Müller

The understanding of the basic properties of the ultrahigh-energy extensive air showers is dependent on the description of hadronic interactions in an energy range beyond that probed by the LHC. One of the uncertainties present in the modeling of air showers is the treatment of diffractive interactions, which are dominated by nonperturbative physics and usually described by phenomenological models. These interactions are expected to affect the development of the air showers, since they provide a way of transporting substantial amounts of energy deep in the atmosphere, modifying the global characteristics of the shower profile. In this paper, we investigate the impact of diffractive interactions in the observables that can be measured in hadronic collisions at high energies and ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray interactions. We consider three distinct phenomenological models for the treatment of diffractive physics and estimate the influence of these interactions on the elasticity, number of secondaries, longitudinal air shower profiles and muon densities for proton-air and iron-air collisions at different primary energies. Our results demonstrate that even for the most recent models, diffractive events have a non-negligible effect on the observables and that the distinct approaches for these interactions, present in the phenomenological models, still are an important source of theoretical uncertainty for the description of the extensive air showers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 05003
Author(s):  
Antony Escudie ◽  
Didier Charrier ◽  
Richard Dallier ◽  
Daniel García-Fernández ◽  
Alain Lecacheux ◽  
...  

Since 2003, significant efforts have been devoted to the understanding of the radio emission of extensive air shower in the range [20-200] MHz. Despite some studies led until the early nineties, the [1-10] MHz band has remained unused for 20 years. However, it has been measured by some pioneering experiments that extensive air shower emit a strong electric field in this band and that there is evidence of a large increase in the amplitude of the radio pulse at lower frequencies. The EXTASIS experiment, located within the Nançay Radioastronomy Observatory and supported by the CODALEMA experiment, aims to reinvestigate the [1-10] MHz band, and especially to study the so-called “Sudden Death” contribution, the expected electric field emitted by shower front when hitting the ground level. Currently, EXTASIS has confirmed some results obtained by the pioneering experiments, and tends to bring explanations to the other ones, for instance the role of the underlying atmospheric electric field. Moreover, CODALEMA has demonstrated that in the most commonly used frequency band ([20-80] MHz) the electric field profile of EAS can be well sampled, and contains all the information needed for the reconstruction of EAS: an automatic comparison between the SELFAS3 simulations and data has been developed, allowing us to reconstruct in an almost real time the primary cosmic ray characteristics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 02012
Author(s):  
R. Takeishi

One of the uncertainties in ultrahigh energy cosmic ray (UHECR) observation derives from the hadronic interaction model used for air shower Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations. One may test the hadronic interaction models by comparing the measured number of muons observed at the ground from UHECR induced air showers with the MC prediction. The Telescope Array (TA) is the largest experiment in the northern hemisphere observing UHECR in Utah, USA. It aims to reveal the origin of UHECRs by studying the energy spectrum, mass composition and anisotropy of cosmic rays by utilizing an array of surface detectors (SDs) and fluorescence detectors. We studied muon densities in the UHE extensive air showers by analyzing the signal of TA SD stations for highly inclined showers. On condition that the muons contribute about 65% of the total signal, the number of particles from air showers is typically 1.88 ± 0.08 (stat.) ± 0.42 (syst.) times larger than the MC prediction with the QGSJET II-03 model for proton-induced showers. The same feature was also obtained for other hadronic interaction models, such as QGSJET II-04.


2019 ◽  
Vol 208 ◽  
pp. 08017
Author(s):  
Stanislav Knurenko ◽  
Igor Petrov

The paper presents results on the longitudinal development of air showers of ultra-high energies obtained from radio emission measurements at the Yakutsk array. The energy, the depth of maximum development of individual showers are determined and a statistical analysis of Xmax in order to estimate the fluctuation of air shower development σ(Xmax) in the energy region 1017-1018 eV is performed. It is shown that σ(Xmax) in the energy region 1017-1018 eV is equal to 50-60 g·cm-2, which doesn’t contradict with a mixed composition of cosmic rays - protons and helium nuclei. This is also indicated by data of the Xmax value dependence on energy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 216 ◽  
pp. 02004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizia Canfora

The mass composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays plays a key role in the understanding of the origins ofthese rare particles. A composition-sensitive observable is the atmospheric depth at which the air shower reaches the maximum number of particles (Xmax). The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) detects the radio emission inthe 30-80 MHz frequency band from extensive air showers with energies larger than 1017 eV. It consists of more than 150 autonomous radio stations covering an area of about 17 km2. From the distribution of signals measured by the antennas, it is possible to estimate Xmax. In this contribution three independent methods for the estimation of Xmax will be presented.


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