| 1. |
- Buitink, S., et al.
(författare)
-
Method for high precision reconstruction of air shower Xmax using two-dimensional radio intensity profiles
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 90:8, s. 1-12
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The mass composition of cosmic rays contains important clues about their origin. Accurate measurements are needed to resolve longstanding issues such as the transition from Galactic to extra-Galactic origin and the nature of the cutoff observed at the highest energies. Composition can be studied by measuring the atmospheric depth of the shower maximum Xmax of air showers generated by high-energy cosmic rays hitting the Earth’s atmosphere. We present a new method to reconstruct Xmax based on radio measurements. The radio emission mechanism of air showers is a complex process that creates an asymmetric intensity pattern on the ground. The shape of this pattern strongly depends on the longitudinal development of the shower. We reconstruct Xmax by fitting two-dimensional intensity profiles, simulated with CoREAS, to data from the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope. In the dense LOFAR core, air showers are detected by hundreds of antennas simultaneously. The simulations fit the data very well, indicating that the radiation mechanism is now well understood. The typical uncertainty on the reconstruction of Xmax for LOFAR showers is 17 g/cm2.
|
|
| 2. |
|
|
| 3. |
- Schellart, P., et al.
(författare)
-
Polarized radio emission from extensive air showers measured with LOFAR
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1475-7516. ; 10
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present LOFAR measurements of radio emission from extensive air showers. We find that this emission is strongly polarized, with a median degree of polarization of nearly99%, and that the angle between the polarization direction of the electric field and the Lorentz force acting on the particles, depends on the observer location in the shower plane. This can be understood as a superposition of the radially polarized charge-excess emission mechanism, first proposed by Askaryan and the geomagnetic emission mechanism proposed by Kahn and Lerche. We calculate the relative strengths of both contributions, as quantified by the charge-excess fraction, for 163 individual air showers. We find that the measured charge-excess fraction is higher for air showers arriving from closer to the zenith. Furthermore, the measured charge-excess fraction also increases with increasing observer distance from the air shower symmetry axis. The measured values range from (3.3± 1.0)% for very inclined air showers at 25 m to (20.3± 1.3)% for almost vertical showers at 225 m. Both dependencies are in qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions.
|
|
| 4. |
- Schellart, P., et al.
(författare)
-
Recent results from cosmic-ray measurements with LOFAR
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 742, s. 115-118
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- LOFAR, the Low Frequency Array, is currently the world's largest distributed radio telescope observing at frequencies below 240 MHz. LOFAR is measuring cosmic-ray induced air-showers since June 2011 and has collected several hundreds of events with hundreds of antennas per individual event. We present measurements of the radio signal strength as well as high-precision measurements of wavefront curvature and polarization. These will enable us to disentangle the different emission mechanisms at play, such as geomagnetic radiation, charge excess, and Askaryan or Cherenkov effects, leading to a full understanding of the air-shower radio emission. Furthermore we give a first example on how the full complexity of the signal enables radio measurements to be used to study primary particle composition.
|
|
| 5. |
- Thoudam, Satyendra, et al.
(författare)
-
LORA : A scintillator array for LOFAR to measure extensive air showers
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 767, s. 339-346
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The measurement of the radio emission from extensive air showers, induced by high-energy cosmic rays, is one of the key science projects of the LOFAR radio telescope. The LOfar Radboud air shower Array (LORA) has been installed in the core of LOFAR in the Netherlands. The main purpose of LORA is to measure the properties of air showers and to trigger the read-out of the LOFAR radio antennas to register extensive air showers. The experimental set-up of the array of scintillation detectors and its performance are described.
|
|
