Reconstruction of the energy and depth of maximum of cosmic-ray air showers from LOPES radio measurements

Apel, W. D.; Arteaga‐Velázquez, J. C.; Bähren, L.; Bekk, K.; Bertaina, M.; Biermann, Peter L.; Blümer, J.; Bozdog, H.; Brancus, I. M.; Cantoni, E.; Чиавасса, А.; Daumiller, K.; Souza, V. de; Pierro, F. Di; Döll, P.; Engel, R.; Falcke, H.; Fuchs, B.; Fuhrmann, D.; Gemmeke, H.; Grupen, C.; Haungs, A.; Heck, D.; Hörandel, J. R.; Horneffer, A.; Huber, Daniel; Huege, T.; Isar, P. G.; Kampert, K.H.; Kang, D.; Krömer, O.; Kuijpers, J.; Link, K.; Łuczak, P.; Ludwig, M.; Mathes, H. J.; Melissas, M.; Morello, C.; Oehlschläger, J.; Palmieri, N.; Pierog, T.; Rautenberg, J.; Rebel, H.; Roth, M.; Rühle, C.; Sǎftoiu, A.; Schieler, H.; Schmidt, A.; Schröder, Frank G.; Sima, O.; Toma, G.; Trinchero, G.; Weindl, A.; Wochele, J.; Zabierowski, J.; Zensus, J. A.

doi:10.1103/physrevd.90.062001

Cited by 66 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Radio detection of cosmic rays [6][7][8] is a rapidly developing technique 9 , suitable for determination of X max 10,11 with a duty cycle of in principle nearly 100%. The radiation is generated by the separation of relativistic charged particles in the geomagnetic field and a negative charge excess in the shower front 6,12 .…”

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confidence: 99%

A large light-mass component of cosmic rays at 1017–1017.5 electronvolts from radio observations

Buitink

Corstanje

Falcke

et al. 2016

Nature

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4Cosmic rays are the highest energy particles found in nature. Measurements of the mass composition of cosmic rays between 10 17 eV and 10 18 eV are essential to understand whether this energy range is dominated by Galactic or extragalactic sources. It has also been proposed that the astrophysical neutrino signal 1 comes from accelerators capable of producing cosmic rays of these energies 2 . Cosmic rays initiate cascades of secondary particles (air showers) in the atmosphere and their masses are inferred from measurements of the atmospheric depth of the shower maximum, X max 3 , or the composition of shower particles reaching the ground 4 .Current measurements 5 suffer from either low precision, and/or a low duty cycle. Radio detection of cosmic rays 6-8 is a rapidly developing technique 9 , suitable for determination of X max 10, 11 with a duty cycle of in principle nearly 100%. The radiation is generated by the separation of relativistic charged particles in the geomagnetic field and a negative charge excess in the shower front 6, 12 . Here we report radio measurements of X max with a mean precision of 16 g/cm 2 between 10 17 − 10 17.5 eV. Because of the high resolution in X max we can determine the mass spectrum and find a mixed composition, containing a light mass fraction of ∼ 80%. Unless the extragalactic component becomes significant already below 10 17.5 eV, our measurements indicate an additional Galactic component dominating at this energy range.Observations were made with the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR 13 ), a radio telescope consisting of thousands of crossed dipoles, with built-in air shower detection capability 14 . LOFAR records the radio signals from air showers continuously while running astronomical observations simultaneously. It comprises a scintillator array (LORA), that triggers the readout of buffers, stor-5 ing the full waveforms received by all antennas.We have selected air showers from the period June 2011 -January 2015 with radio pulses in at least 192 antennas. The total uptime was ∼150 days, limited by construction and commissioning of the telescope. Showers that occurred within an hour from lightning activity, or have a polarisation pattern that is indicative of influences from atmospheric electric fields are excluded from the sample 15 .Radio intensity patterns from air showers are asymmetric due to the interference between geomagnetic and charge excess radiation. They can be reproduced from first principles by summing the radio contributions of all electrons and positrons in the shower. We use the radio simulation code CoREAS 16 , a plug-in of CORSIKA 17 , which follows this approach.It has been shown that X max can be accurately reconstructed from densely sampled radio measurements 18 . We use a hybrid approach, simultaneously fitting the radio and particle data. The radio component is very sensitive to X max , while the particle component is used for the energy measurement.The fit contains four free parameters: the shower core position (x, y), and scaling factors for the partic...

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confidence: 99%

A large light-mass component of cosmic rays at 1017–1017.5 electronvolts from radio observations

Buitink

Corstanje

Falcke

et al. 2016

Nature

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152

149

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“…the shower maximum for air showers and the vertex position for neutrinos. Radio detection of air showers has reached maturity already, where the energy is typically derived from reconstructing the footprint of the shower on ground [2,[19][20][21]. To this end, the footprint is sampled by many antennas.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the energy reconstruction does not work well for vertical showers, for more inclined showers the distribution has a median of −0.01 +0. 21 −0.11 with the uncertainties representing the 68% quantile. While the uncertainty is small for most events, there are several outliers where the energy was greatly overestimated.…”

Section: Energy Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing the cosmic-ray energy from the radio signal measured in one single station

Gläser

Nelles

2019

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

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Short radio pulses can be measured from showers of both high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos. While commonly several antenna stations are needed to reconstruct the energy of an air shower, we describe a novel method that relies on the radio signal measured in one antenna station only. Exploiting a broad frequency bandwidth of 80 − 300 MHz, we obtain a statistical energy resolution of better than 15% on a realistic Monte Carlo set. This method is both a step towards energy reconstruction from the radio signal of neutrino induced showers, as well as a promising tool for cosmic-ray radio arrays. Especially for hybrid arrays where the air shower geometry is provided by an independent detector, this method provides a precise handle on the energy of the shower even with a sparse array.

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“…It has been shown by LOPES that the lateral distribution of the radio signal can be used to determine X max [13]. Their approach was based on a one-dimensional approximation of the radio profile, which yields a reconstruction resolution of 50 g=cm 2 for simulations and 95 g=cm 2 for LOPES data.…”

Section: B Experimental Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like fluorescence light, the radio signal carries information of the complete longitudinal development of the shower [12]. It is therefore possible to reconstruct X max from the radio signal [13]. The method presented here requires measurements with many radio antennas simultaneously, in order to adequately sample the radiation profile.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Method for high precision reconstruction of air showerXmaxusing two-dimensional radio intensity profiles

et al. 2014

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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 extraGalactic 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 X max of air showers generated by high-energy cosmic rays hitting the Earth's atmosphere. We present a new method to reconstruct X max 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 X max 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 X max for LOFAR showers is 17 g=cm 2 .

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Reconstruction of the energy and depth of maximum of cosmic-ray air showers from LOPES radio measurements

Cited by 66 publications

References 25 publications

A large light-mass component of cosmic rays at 1017–1017.5 electronvolts from radio observations

A large light-mass component of cosmic rays at 1017–1017.5 electronvolts from radio observations

Reconstructing the cosmic-ray energy from the radio signal measured in one single station

Method for high precision reconstruction of air showerXmaxusing two-dimensional radio intensity profiles

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