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Title: Measurement of the radiation energy in the radio signal of extensive air showers as a universal estimator of cosmic-ray energy

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
 [1]
  1. Univ. Siegen, Siegen (Germany). et al.

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 ± 0.7 (stat) ± 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
Pierre Auger Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; FR02-04ER41300; FG02-99ER41107; SC0011689
OSTI ID:
1258286
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1257015
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1605.02564; FERMILAB-PUB-16-169-AD-AE-CD-TD; PRLTAO; 1456765
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 116, Issue 24; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 78 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (18)

The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND): Science and design journal August 2019
Results and Perspectives of the Auger Engineering Radio Array journal January 2017
Simulation of the Radiation Energy Release in Air Showers journal January 2017
The mass composition of cosmic rays measured with LOFAR journal January 2017
Reconstructing the cosmic-ray energy from the radio signal measured in one single station journal October 2019
Radio-wave detection of ultra-high-energy neutrinos and cosmic rays journal November 2017
Enhancing the cosmic-ray mass sensitivity of air-shower arrays by combining radio and muon detectors journal April 2019
NuRadioReco: a reconstruction framework for radio neutrino detectors journal June 2019
NuRadioMC: Simulating the radio emission of neutrinos from interaction to detector text January 2020
Reconstructing the cosmic-ray energy from the radio signal measured in one single station text January 2019
Enhancing the cosmic-ray mass sensitivity of air-shower arrays by combining radio and muon detectors text January 2019
NuRadioMC: simulating the radio emission of neutrinos from interaction to detector journal January 2020
NuRadioReco: a reconstruction framework for radio neutrino detectors text January 2019
Simulation of the Radiation Energy Release in Air Showers text January 2017
Results and Perspectives of the Auger Engineering Radio Array text January 2016
The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND): Science and Design text January 2018
NuRadioReco: A reconstruction framework for radio neutrino detectors text January 2019
Enhancing the cosmic-ray mass sensitivity of air-shower arrays by combining radio and muon detectors text January 2019

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