Self-triggered radio detection and identification of cosmic air showers with the OVRO-LWA
Creators
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1.
California Institute of Technology
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2.
Jet Propulsion Lab
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3.
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
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4.
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
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5.
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
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6.
University of New Mexico
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7.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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8.
Swinburne University of Technology
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9.
University of California, Berkeley
Abstract
A successful ground array Radio Frequency (RF)-only self-trigger is demonstrated with 256 dual-polarization antennas of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA), yielding 10 high-energy cosmic ray candidates. This RF-only capability is predicated on novel techniques for Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) identification and mitigation with an analysis efficiency of approximately 45% for shower-driven events with a Signal-to-noise ratio 5 against the galactic background noise power of individual antennas. Radio self-triggering enables more efficient detection of cosmic rays over a wider range of zenith angles than possible via triggers from in-situ particle detectors and the method presented here can be easily adapted to neutrino experiments relying on RF-only detection. This paper discusses the system design, RFI characterization and mitigation techniques, and initial results from 10 cosmic ray candidate events identified within a 40-hour observing window. A design for a future optimized commensal cosmic-ray detector for the OVRO-LWA is presented, as well as recommendations for developing a similar capability for other experiments – these designs either reduce data-rate or increase sensitivity by an order of magnitude for many configurations of radio instruments.
Additional Information
© 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. Received 3 September 2019, Revised 19 October 2019, Accepted 4 November 2019, Available online 13 November 2019. This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant AST-1654815 and AST-1212226, as well as the NASA Solar System Exploration Virtual Institute cooperative agreement 80ARC017M0006 and the DFG grant NE2031/1-1. Gregg Hallinan acknowledges the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. The OVRO-LWA project was initiated through the kind donation of Deborah Castleman and Harold Rosen. Part of this work was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Andres Romero-Wolf and Gregg Hallinan thank the Caltech/JPL President's and Director's Research and Development Fund. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.Attached Files
Submitted - 1907.10193.pdf
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1907.10193.pdf
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Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 97425
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190725-161508442
Related works
- Describes
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.10193 (URL)
Funding
- NSF
- AST-1654815
- NSF
- AST-1212226
- NASA
- 80ARC017M0006
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
- NE2031/1-1
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Research Corporation
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- JPL President and Director's Fund
Dates
- Created
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2019-07-26Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2023-02-14Created from EPrint's last_modified field