skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: First upper limits on the radar cross section of cosmic-ray induced extensive air showers

Journal Article · · Astroparticle Physics
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [4];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [1] more »;  [10];  [11];  [12];  [13];  [1];  [14];  [13];  [15];  [15];  [16];  [10];  [2];  [16];  [3];  [17];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [18];  [3];  [19];  [20];  [21];  [13];  [2];  [10];  [10];  [6];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [3];  [14];  [19];  [9];  [1];  [5];  [1];  [16];  [22];  [23];  [13];  [1];  [13];  [16];  [1];  [2];  [17];  [24];  [10];  [8];  [13];  [3];  [10];  [10];  [10];  [25];  [26];  [27];  [20];  [28];  [14];  [29];  [1];  [1];  [19];  [30];  [10];  [13];  [1];  [31];  [1];  [1];  [16];  [10];  [10];  [6];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [32];  [1];  [2];  [33];  [7];  [10];  [10];  [34];  [10];  [15];  [13];  [35];  [23];  [1];  [1];  [36];  [19];  [3];  [37];  [19];  [13];  [3];  [38];  [15];  [39];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [13];  [23];  [13];  [5];  [7];  [13];  [21];  [40];  [1];  [1] « less
  1. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
  2. Saitama Univ. (Japan)
  3. Tokyo Inst. of Technology (Japan)
  4. Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States); Moscow Engineering Physics Univ., Moscow (Russian Federation)
  5. Ewha Womans Univ., Seoul (Korea)
  6. Hanyang Univ., Seoul (Korea)
  7. Tokyo Univ. of Science, Chiba (Japan)
  8. Kinki Univ., Osaka (Japan)
  9. Yonsei Univ., Seoul (Korea)
  10. Univ. of Tokyo, Chiba (Japan)
  11. Univ. of Tokyo (Japan); Univ. of Tokyo, Chiba (Japan). Kavli Inst. for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI)
  12. Gillman and Associates, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
  13. Osaka City Univ. (Japan)
  14. Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States)
  15. Kanagawa Univ. (Japan)
  16. Univ. of Yamanashi (Japan)
  17. RIKEN, Saitama (Japan)
  18. Tokyo City Univ. (Japan)
  19. National Nuclear Research Univ., Moscow (Russia)
  20. Waseda Univ., Shinjuku (Japan)
  21. Chiba Univ. (Japan)
  22. Univ. of Tokyo, Chiba (Japan). Kavli Inst. for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI)
  23. The High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Ibaraki (Japan)
  24. Kochi Univ. (Japan)
  25. Ritsumeikan Univ., Shiga (Japan)
  26. Kyushu Univ. (Japan)
  27. Chuba Univ., Aichi (Japan)
  28. Sungkyunkwan Univ., Suwan (Korea)
  29. Moscow M.V.Lomonosov State Univ. (Russia); National Nuclear Research Univ., Moscow (Russia)
  30. Ulsan National Inst. of Science and Technology, Ulsan (Korea)
  31. Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (United States)
  32. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States); Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (United States)
  33. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
  34. Univ. of Tokyo (Japan)
  35. High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba (Japan)
  36. National Nuclear Research Univ., Moscow (Russia); Free Univ. of Brussels (Belgium)
  37. Shinshu Univ., Nagano (Japan)
  38. National Inst. of Radiological Science, Chiba (Japan)
  39. Free Univ. of Brussels (Belgium)
  40. Ehime Univ., Matsuyama (Japan)
+ Show Author Affiliations

TARA (Telescope Array Radar) is a cosmic ray radar detection experiment colocated with Telescope Array, the conventional surface scintillation detector (SD) and fluorescence telescope detector (FD) near Delta, Utah, U.S.A. Furthermore, the TARA detector combines a 40 kW, 54.1 MHz VHF transmitter and high-gain transmitting antenna which broadcasts the radar carrier over the SD array and within the FD field of view, towards a 250 MS/s DAQ receiver. TARA has been collecting data since 2013 with the primary goal of observing the radar signatures of extensive air showers (EAS). Simulations indicate that echoes are expected to be short in duration (~10 µs) and exhibit rapidly changing frequency, with rates on the order 1 MHz/µs. The EAS radar cross-section (RCS) is currently unknown although it is the subject of over 70 years of speculation. One novel signal search technique is described in which the expected radar echo of a particular air shower is used as a matched filter template and compared to waveforms obtained by triggering the radar DAQ using the Telescope Array fluorescence detector. No evidence for the scattering of radio frequency radiation by EAS is obtained to date. Finally, we report the first quantitative RCS upper limits using EAS that triggered the Telescope Array Fluorescence Detector.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC00112704
OSTI ID:
1377051
Report Number(s):
BNL-114194-2017-JA
Journal Information:
Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 87, Issue C; ISSN 0927-6505
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 8 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (19)

First Observation of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin Suppression journal March 2008
The Cosmic-Ray Energy Spectrum Observed with the Surface Detector of the Telescope Array Experiment journal April 2013
Observation of the Suppression of the Flux of Cosmic Rays above 4 × 10 19     eV journal August 2008
INDICATIONS OF INTERMEDIATE-SCALE ANISOTROPY OF COSMIC RAYS WITH ENERGY GREATER THAN 57 EeV IN THE NORTHERN SKY MEASURED WITH THE SURFACE DETECTOR OF THE TELESCOPE ARRAY EXPERIMENT journal July 2014
Detection and imaging of atmospheric radio flashes from cosmic ray air showers journal May 2005
Telescope Array Radar (TARA) observatory for Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
  • Abbasi, R.; Othman, M. Abou Bakr; Allen, C.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 767 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2014.08.015
journal December 2014
Review of Particle Physics journal August 2014
Cosmic Ray Showers journal December 1960
Universality of electron distributions in high-energy air showers—Description of Cherenkov light production journal January 2006
QGSJET-II: towards reliable description of very high energy hadronic interactions journal January 2006
Collision frequency associated with high temperature air and scattering cross-sections of the constituents journal June 1961
On the use of atmospheric pressure plasmas as electromagnetic reflectors and absorbers journal January 1990
Effective collision frequency of electrons in atmospheric gases journal August 1971
Cross Sections for Collisions of Electrons and Photons with Nitrogen Molecules journal July 1986
Cross Sections for Collisions of Electrons and Photons with Oxygen Molecules journal January 1989
On the possibility of radar echo detection of ultra-high energy cosmic ray- and neutrino-induced extensive air showers journal April 2001
Versatile radar measurement of the electron loss rate in air journal November 2013
Radar cross-section estimation for simple shapes journal January 1965
Monocular measurement of the spectrum of UHE cosmic rays by the FADC detector of the HiRes experiment journal March 2005

Cited By (1)

Suggestion of coherent radio reflections from an electron-beam induced particle cascade journal October 2019

Similar Records

The effect of the atmospheric condition on the extensive air shower analysis at the Telescope Array experiment
Journal Article · Thu Sep 22 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · AIP Conference Proceedings · OSTI ID:1377051
+2 more
Fluorescence and hybrid detection aperture of the Pierre Auger Observatory
Conference · Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2005 · OSTI ID:1377051
+4 more
Nanosecond-level time synchronization of autonomous radio detector stations for extensive air showers
Journal Article · Fri Jan 29 00:00:00 EST 2016 · Journal of Instrumentation · OSTI ID:1377051

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
cosmic ray
radar
digital signal processing
radar cross-section