Early Results from TUS, the First Orbital Detector of Extreme Energy Cosmic Rays

Abstract

TUS is the world's first orbital detector of extreme energy cosmic rays (EECRs), which operates as a part of the scientific payload of the Lomonosov satellite since May 19, 2016. TUS employs the nocturnal atmosphere of the Earth to register ultraviolet (UV) fluorescence and Cherenkov radiation from extensive air showers generated by EECRs as well as UV radiation from lightning strikes and transient luminous events, micro-meteors and space debris. The first months of its operation in orbit have demonstrated an unexpectedly rich variety of UV radiation in the atmosphere. We briefly review the design of TUS and present a few examples of events recorded in a mode dedicated to registering EECRs.

Application of Neural Networks to Classification of Data of the TUS Orbital Telescope

“…A preliminary phenomenological classification of TUS events was ready by October 2016 [13] and was refined later on [12]. All events were divided into several groups:…”

“…Miscellaneous examples of events of all types can be found in [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Please note that the four classes of events were not disjoint: in some cases an event of one type was registered simultaneously with an event of another type within one data record.…”

“…The data set obtained with TUS has demonstrated that an unexpected variety of different processes are taking place in the nocturnal atmosphere of the Earth in the ultraviolet (UV) range. Considerable efforts have been put in the analysis of the TUS data, see, e.g., [13][14][15][16][17]. Until recently, all of them were based on conventional approaches.…”

The First Application of Neural Networks to the Analysis of the TUS Orbital Detector Data

“…Miscellaneous examples of events of all types can be found in [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Note that the four classes of events were not disjoint: in some cases an event of one type was registered simultaneously with an event of another type within one data record.…”

Ultra-high energy cosmic ray detector TUS: preliminary results of the first year of measurements

“…The last mode has 6.6 ms sampling time and can detect (micro)meteors, space debris and thunderstorm activity at a longer time scale (∼ 1.7 s). Digital integration of the signal and measurements at various time scales allow studying transient atmospheric phenomena of different origin and using the TUS detector as a multifunctional space observatory for astrophysical and geophysical research [22,23,24]. Examples of measurements in slow modes are presented in the last section of the article.…”