Studies for high energy air shower identification using RF measurements with the ASTRONEU array

Abstract

The Hellenic Open University (HOU) Cosmic Ray Telescope (ASTRONEU) consists of 9 large scintillator detectors and 3 RF antennas arranged in three autonomous stations operating at the Hellenic Open University campus in the city of Patras. High energy showers that are detected simultaneously by two distant stations and in coincidence with the RF antennas are used to study the RF signature of cosmic events. In previous studies we have shown that the timing of the RF signals as well as the measured electric field at the antennas position are in very good agreement with the simulation predictions. In this work we concentrate on the transfer functions of the antennas which are strongly frequency and angular dependent. We show that the RF spectra (at frequencies 30-80 MHz) of the detected showers are exhibiting features of the antenna response as predicted by detailed Monte Carlo simulation suggesting that a single antenna RF spectrum gives access to the cosmic ray arrival direction.

Hybrid Detection of High Energy Showers in Urban Environments

“…The analysis is still on going in order to define more efficient selection criteria and signal processing techniques in the full data set which is a factor of 2 grater than the sample used in this analysis. In addition, further studies concerning the transfer functions of the antennas which are strongly frequency and angular dependent show that the RF signals are in agreement with the MC expectations suggesting that a single antenna might give access to the cosmic arrival direction [24]. Finally, to examine further the potential of the RF detection, more antennas have been installed in one of the stations.…”

A low cost hybrid detection system of high energy air showers

“…In order to quantify the performance of the detection system a large number of showers were produced in the energy range 10 15 − 10 18 eV . The detected showers were reconstructed by the spectrum response of the antennas as it is described in [14]. The procedure involves a minimization procedure where the shape of the power spectrum of the Fourier transformed RF pulse is compared with the simulation prediction.…”

Angular reconstruction of high energy air showers using the radio signal spectrum

“…We have also studied the timing and the amplitude strength of the RF signals by comparing the antenna data with the particle detector data, as well as with the simulation predictions [11]. Furthermore, we have presented the first studies on a complete Voltage Response Model (VRM) for the RF system using the antenna's Vector Effective Length (VEL) [12] and the measured electric field (actually the RF spectra) at the antenna's position in order to estimate the primary particle arrival direction.…”