1. |
- Horandel, Jorg R., et al.
(author)
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The mass composition of cosmic rays measured with LOFAR
- 2017
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In: RICAP16, 6TH ROMA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS. - : EDP Sciences.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- High-energy cosmic rays, impinging on the atmosphere of the Earth initiate cascades of secondary particles, the extensive air showers. The electrons and positrons in the air shower emit electromagnetic radiation. This emission is detected with the LOFAR radio telescope in the frequency range from 30 to 240 MHz. The data are used to determine the properties of the incoming cosmic rays. The radio technique is now routinely used to measure the arrival direction, the energy, and the particle type (atomic mass) of cosmic rays in the energy range from 10(17) to 10(18) eV. This energy region is of particular astrophysical interest, since in this regime a transition from a Galactic to an extra-galactic origin of cosmic rays is expected. For illustration, the LOFAR results are used to set constraints on models to describe the origin of high-energy cosmic rays.
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2. |
- Bonardi, Antonio, et al.
(author)
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Towards real-time cosmic-ray identification with the LOw Frequency ARay
- 2019
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In: 8th International Conference on Acoustic and Radio EeV Neutrino Detection Activities (ARENA 2018). - : EDP Sciences. - 9782759890804 ; , s. 1-3
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The radio signals emitted by Extensive Air Showers have been successfully used for the last decade by LOFAR to reconstruct the properties of the primary cosmic rays. Since an effective real-time recognition system for the very short radio pulses is lacking, cosmic-ray acquisition is currently triggered by an external array of particle detector, called LORA, limiting the LOFAR collecting area to the area covered by LORA. A new algorithm for the real-time cosmic-ray detection has been developed for the LOFAR Low Band Antenna, which are sensitive between 10 and 90 MHz, and is here presented together with the latest results.
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3. |
- Boulanger, Francois, et al.
(author)
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IMAGINE : a comprehensive view of the interstellar medium, Galactic magnetic fields and cosmic rays
- 2018
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In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1475-7516. ; :8
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this white paper we introduce the IMAGINE Consortium and its scientific background, goals and structure. The purpose of the consortium is to coordinate and facilitate the efforts of a diverse group of researchers in the broad areas of the interstellar medium, Galactic magnetic fields and cosmic rays, and our overarching goal is to develop more comprehensive insights into the structures and roles of interstellar magnetic fields and their interactions with cosmic rays within the context of Galactic astrophysics. The ongoing rapid development of observational and numerical facilities and techniques has resulted in a widely felt need to advance this subject to a qualitatively higher level of self-consistency, depth and rigour. This can only be achieved by the coordinated efforts of experts in diverse areas of astrophysics involved in observational, theoretical and numerical work. We present our view of the present status of this research area, identify its key unsolved problems and suggest a strategy that will underpin our work. The backbone of the consortium is the Interstellar MAGnetic field INference Engine, a publicly available Bayesian platform that employs robust statistical methods to explore the multi-dimensional likelihood space using any number of modular inputs. This tool will be used by the IMAGINE Consortium to develop an interpretation and modelling framework that provides the method, power and flexibility to interfuse information from a variety of observational, theoretical and numerical lines of evidence into a self-consistent and comprehensive picture of the thermal and non-thermal interstellar media. An important innovation is that a consistent understanding of the phenomena that are directly or indirectly influenced by the Galactic magnetic field, such as the deflection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays or extragalactic backgrounds, is made an integral part of the modelling. The IMAGINE Consortium, which is informal by nature and open to new participants, hereby presents a methodological framework for the modelling and understanding of Galactic magnetic fields that is available to all communities whose research relies on a state of the art solution to this problem.
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4. |
- Haverkorn, Marijke, et al.
(author)
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IMAGINE : Modeling the Galactic Magnetic Field
- 2019
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In: Galaxies. - : MDPI AG. - 2075-4434. ; 7:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The IMAGINE Consortium aims to bring modeling of the magnetic field of the Milky Way to the next level by using Bayesian inference. IMAGINE includes an open-source modular software pipeline that optimizes parameters in a user-defined galactic magnetic field model against various selected observational datasets. Bayesian priors can be added as external probabilistic constraints of the model parameters. These conference proceedings describe the science goals of the IMAGINE consortium, the software pipeline and its inputs, namely observational data sets, galactic magnetic field models, and Bayesian priors.
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5. |
- Rossetto, Laura, et al.
(author)
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Latest results on the analysis of the radio frequency spectrum emitted by high energy air showers with LOFAR
- 2019
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In: 8th International Conference on Acoustic and Radio EeV Neutrino Detection Activities (ARENA 2018). - : EDP Sciences. - 9782759890804 ; , s. 1-3
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The LOw Frequency ARay (LOFAR) is a multi-purpose radio antenna array aimed to detect radio signals in the frequency range 10 - 240 MHz, covering a large surface in Northern Europe with a higher density in the Netherlands. Analytical calculations and simulation studies performed in the 2000s indicate a dependence of the radio frequency spectrum on cosmic-ray characteristics. The high number density of radio antennas at the LOFAR core allows to characterise the observed cascade in a detailed way. The radio signal emitted by air showers in the atmosphere has been studied accurately in the 30 - 80 MHz frequency range. The analysis has been conducted on simulated events and on real data detected by LOFAR since 2011. The final aim of this study is to find an independent method to infer information of primary cosmic rays for improving the reconstruction of primary particle parameters. Results show a strong dependence of the frequency spectrum on the distance to the shower axis for both real data and simulations. Furthermore, results show that this method is very sensitive to the precision in reconstructing the position of the shower axis at ground, and to different antenna calibration procedures. A correlation between the frequency spectrum and geometrical distance to the shower maximum development X-max has also been investigated.
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