1. |
- Abdellaoui, G., et al.
(author)
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Meteor studies in the framework of the JEM-EUSO program
- 2017
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In: Planetary and Space Science. - : Elsevier. - 0032-0633 .- 1873-5088. ; 143, s. 245-255
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We summarize the state of the art of a program of UV observations from space of meteor phenomena, a secondary objective of the JEM-EUSO international collaboration. Our preliminary analysis indicates that JEM-EUSO, taking advantage of its large FOV and good sensitivity, should be able to detect meteors down to absolute magnitude close to 7. This means that JEM-EUSO should be able to record a statistically significant flux of meteors, including both sporadic ones, and events produced by different meteor streams. Being unaffected by adverse weather conditions, JEM-EUSO can also be a very important facility for the detection of bright meteors and fireballs, as these events can be detected even in conditions of very high sky background. In the case of bright events, moreover, exhibiting some persistence of the meteor train, preliminary simulations show that it should be possible to exploit the motion of the ISS itself and derive at least a rough 3D reconstruction of the meteor trajectory. Moreover, the observing strategy developed to detect meteors may also be applied to the detection of nuclearites, exotic particles whose existence has been suggested by some theoretical investigations. Nuclearites are expected to move at higher velocities than meteoroids, and to exhibit a wider range of possible trajectories, including particles moving upward after crossing the Earth. Some pilot studies, including the approved Mini-EUSO mission, a precursor of JEM-EUSO, are currently operational or in preparation. We are doing simulations to assess the performance of Mini-EUSO for meteor studies, while a few meteor events have been already detected using the ground-based facility EUSO-TA.
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2. |
- Abdellaoui, G., et al.
(author)
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First observations of speed of light tracks by a fluorescence detector looking down on the atmosphere
- 2018
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In: Journal of Instrumentation. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD. - 1748-0221. ; 13
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- EUSO-Balloon is a pathfinder mission for the Extreme Universe Space Observatory onboard the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM-EUSO). It was launched on the moonless night of the 25(th) of August 2014 from Timmins, Canada. The flight ended successfully after maintaining the target altitude of 38 km for five hours. One part of the mission was a 2.5 hour underflight using a helicopter equipped with three UV light sources (LED, xenon flasher and laser) to perform an inflight calibration and examine the detectors capability to measure tracks moving at the speed of light. We describe the helicopter laser system and details of the underflight as well as how the laser tracks were recorded and found in the data. These are the first recorded laser tracks measured from a fluorescence detector looking down on the atmosphere. Finally, we present a first reconstruction of the direction of the laser tracks relative to the detector.
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3. |
- Ageron, M., et al.
(author)
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ANTARES : The first undersea neutrino telescope
- 2011
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In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 656:1, s. 11-38
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The ANTARES Neutrino Telescope was completed in May 2008 and is the first operational Neutrino Telescope in the Mediterranean Sea. The main purpose of the detector is to perform neutrino astronomy and the apparatus also offers facilities for marine and Earth sciences. This paper describes the design, the construction and the installation of the telescope in the deep sea, offshore from Toulon in France. An illustration of the detector performance is given. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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4. |
- Ageron, M., et al.
(author)
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The ANTARES optical beacon system
- 2007
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In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 578:3, s. 498-509
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- ANTARES is a neutrino telescope being deployed in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of a three-dimensional array of photomultiplier tubes that can detect the Cherenkov light induced by charged particles produced in the interactions of neutrinos with the surrounding medium. High angular resolution can be achieved, in particular, when a muon is produced, provided that the Cherenkov photons are detected with sufficient timing precision. Considerations of the intrinsic time uncertainties stemming from the transit time spread in the photomultiplier tubes and the mechanism of transmission of light in sea water lead to the conclusion that a relative time accuracy of the order of 0.5 ns is desirable. Accordingly, different time calibration systems have been developed for the ANTARES telescope. In this article, a system based on Optical Beacons, a set of external and well-controlled pulsed light sources located throughout the detector, is described. This calibration system takes into account the optical properties of sea water, which is used as the detection volume of the ANTARES telescope. The design, tests, construction and first results of the two types of beacons, LED and laser-based, are presented. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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5. |
- Aguilar, J. A., et al.
(author)
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First results of the instrumentation line for the deep-sea ANTARES neutrino telescope
- 2006
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In: Astroparticle physics. - : Elsevier. - 0927-6505 .- 1873-2852. ; 26:4-5, s. 314-324
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In 2005, the ANTARES Collaboration deployed and operated at a depth of 2500 m a so-called Mini Instrumentation Line equipped with Optical Modules (MILOM) at the ANTARES site. The various data acquired during the continuous operation from April to December 2005 of the MILOM confirm the satisfactory performance of the Optical Modules, their front-end electronics and readout system. as well as the calibration devices of the detector. The in situ measurement of the Optical Module time response yields a resolution better than 0.5 ns. The performance of the acoustic positioning system, which enables the spatial reconstruction of the ANTARES detector with a precision of about 10 cm, is verified. These results demonstrate that with the full ANTARES neutrino telescope the design angular resolution of better than 0.3 degrees can be realistically achieved.
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6. |
- Aguilar, J. A., et al.
(author)
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The data acquisition system for the ANTARES neutrino telescope
- 2007
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In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 570:1, s. 107-116
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The ANTARES neutrino telescope is being constructed in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of a large three-dimensional array of photo-multiplier tubes. The data acquisition system of the detector takes care of the digitisation of the photo-multiplier tube signals, data transport, data filtering, and data storage. The detector is operated using a control program interfaced with all elements. The design and the implementation of the data acquisition system are described. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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7. |
- Ageron, M., et al.
(author)
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Studies of a full-scale mechanical prototype line for the ANTARES neutrino telescope and tests of a prototype instrument for deep-sea acoustic measurements
- 2007
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In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 581:3, s. 695-708
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- full-scale mechanical prototype line was deployed to a depth of 2500 m to test the leak tightness of the electronics containers and the pressure-resistant properties of an electromechanical cable under evaluation for use in the ANTARES deep-sea neutrino telescope. During a month-long immersion study, line parameter data were taken using miniature autonomous data loggers and shore-based optical time domain reflectometry. Details of the mechanical prototype line, the electromechanical cable and data acquisition are presented. Data taken during the immersion study revealed deficiencies in the pressure resistance of the electromechanical cable terminations at the entry points to the electronics containers. The improvements to the termination, which have been integrated into subsequent detection lines, are discussed. The line also allowed deep-sea acoustic measurements with a prototype hydrophone system. The technical setup of this system is described, and the first results of the data analysis are presented. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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8. |
- Aglietta, M, et al.
(author)
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The cosmic ray primary composition between 10(15) and 10(16) eV from Extensive Air Showers electromagnetic and TeV muon data
- 2004
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In: Astroparticle physics. - : Elsevier. - 0927-6505 .- 1873-2852. ; 20:6, s. 641-652
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The cosmic ray primary composition in the energy range between 10(15) and 10(16) eV, i.e., around the "knee" of the primary spectrum, has been studied through the combined measurements of the EAS-TOP air shower array (2005 m a. s.l., 10(5) m(2) collecting area) and the MACRO underground detector (963 m.a.s.l., 3100 m w.e. of minimum rock overburden, 920 m(2) effective area) at the National Gran Sasso Laboratories. The used observables are the air shower size (N-c) measured by EAS-TOP and the muon number (N-mu) recorded by MACRO. The two detectors are separated on average by 1200 m of rock, and located at a respective zenith angle of about 30degrees. The energy threshold at the surface for muons reaching the MACRO depth is approximately 1.3 TeV. Such muons are produced in the early stages of the shower development and in a kinematic region quite different from the one relevant for the usual N-mu - N-e studies. The measurement leads to a primary composition becoming heavier at the knee of the primary spectrum, the knee itself resulting from the steepening of the spectrum of a primary light component (p, He) of Deltay = 0.7 +/- 0.4 at E-0 similar to 4 x 10(15) eV. The result confirms the ones reported from the observation of the low energy muons at the surface (typically in the GeV energy range), showing that the conclusions do not depend on the production region kinematics. Thus, the hadronic interaction model used (CORSIKA/QGSJET) provides consistent composition results from data related to secondaries produced in a rapidity region exceeding the central one. Such an evolution of the composition in the knee region supports the "standard" galactic acceleration/propagation models that imply rigidity dependent breaks of the different components.. and therefore breaks occurring at lower energies in the spectra of the light nuclei. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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9. |
- Aglietta, M, et al.
(author)
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The cosmic ray proton, helium and CNO fluxes in the 100 TeV energy region from TeV muons and EAS atmospheric Cherenkov light observations of MACRO and EAS-TOP
- 2004
-
In: Astroparticle physics. - : Elsevier. - 0927-6505 .- 1873-2852. ; 21:3, s. 223-240
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The primary cosmic ray (CR) proton, helium and CNO fluxes in the energy range 80-300 TeV are studied at the National Gran Sasso Laboratories by means of EAS-TOP (Campo Imperatore, 2005 m a.s.l.) and MACRO (deep underground, 3100 m w.e., the surface energy threshold for a muon reaching the detector being E-mu(th) approximate to 1.3 TeV). The measurement is based on: (a) the selection of primaries based on their energy/nucleon (i.e., with energy/nucleon sufficient to produce a muon with energy larger than 1.3 TeV) and the reconstruction of the shower geometry by means of the muons recorded by MACRO in the deep underground laboratories; (b) the detection of the associated atmospheric Cherenkov light (C.l.) signals by means of the C.l. detector of EAS-TOP. The C.l. density at core distance r > 100 m is directly related to the total primary energy E-0. Proton and helium ("p + He") and proton, helium and CNO ("p + He + CNO") primaries are thus selected at E-0 approximate to 80 TeV, and at E-0 similar or equal to 250 TeV, respectively. Their flux is measured: J(p+He)(80 TeV) = (1.8 +/- 0.4) x 10(-6) m(-1)-s(-1) sr(-1) TeV-1, and J(p+He+CNO)(250 TeV) = (1.1 +/- 0.3) x 10(-7) m(-2)-s(-1) sr(-1) TeV-1, their relative weights being J(p+He)(J(p+He+CNO)) over bar (250 TeV) = 0.78 +/- 0.17. By using the measurements of the proton spectrum obtained from the direct experiments and hadron flux data in the atmosphere, we obtain for the relative weights of the three components at 250 TeV: J(p) : J(He) : J(CNO) = (0.20 +/- 0.08) : (0.58 +/- 0.19) : (0.22 +/- 0.17). This corresponds to the dominance of helium over proton primaries at 100-1000 TeV, and a possible non-negligible contribution from CNO. The lateral distribution of Cherenkov light in Extensive Air Showers (EASs), which is related to the rate of energy deposit of the primary in the atmosphere, is measured for a selected proton and helium primary beam, and good agreement is found when compared with the one calculated with the CORSIKA/QGSJET simulation model. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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