Characteristics of radioelectric fields from air showers induced by UHECR measured with CODALEMA

International audienceThe detection of radio transients associated with extensive air showers EAS induced by ultra high energy cosmic rays with the apparatus CODALEMA allows for the first time the characterisation and sampling of electric field features . Core location together with the electric field profile are determined on an event-by-event basis.The possibility to discriminate an EAS event using a self triggering network of antennas opens the possible deployment of complementary set-ups to existing large surface detectors in order to study the longitudinal development of EAS as well as a contribution to the energy determination and nature of UHECR

Radio pulses from cosmic ray air showers - Boosted Coulomb and Cherenkov fields

High-energy cosmic rays passing through the Earth's atmosphere produce extensive showers whose charges emit radio frequency pulses. Despite the low density of the Earth's atmosphere, this emission should be affected by the air refractive index because the bulk of the shower particles move roughly at the speed of radio waves, so that the retarded altitude of emission, the relativistic boost and the emission pattern are modified. We consider in this paper the contribution of the boosted Coulomb and the Cherenkov fields and calculate analytically the spectrum using a very simplified model in order to highlight the main properties. We find that typically the lower half of the shower charge energy distribution produces a boosted Coulomb field, of amplitude comparable to the levels measured and to those calculated previously for synchrotron emission. Higher energy particles produce instead a Cherenkov-like field, whose amplitude may be smaller because both the negative charge excess and the separation between charges of opposite signs are small at these energies.Comment: 10 figures - Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic

The TIANSHAN Radio Experiment for Neutrino Detection

An antenna array devoted to the autonomous radio-detection of high energy cosmic rays is being deployed on the site of the 21 cm array radio telescope in XinJiang, China. Thanks in particular to the very good electromagnetic environment of this remote experimental site, self-triggering on extensive air showers induced by cosmic rays has been achieved with a small scale prototype of the foreseen antenna array. We give here a detailed description of the detector and present the first detection of extensive air showers with this prototype.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figures. Astroparticle Physics (in press

Macroscopic Geo-Magnetic Radiation Model; Polarization effects and finite volume calculations

An ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) colliding with the Earth's atmosphere gives rise to an Extensive Air Shower (EAS). Due to different charge separation mechanisms within the thin shower front coherent electromagnetic radiation will be emitted within the radio frequency range. A small deviation of the index of refraction from unity will give rise to Cherenkov radiation up to distances of 100 meters from the shower core and therefore has to be included in a complete description of the radio emission from an EAS. Interference between the different radiation mechanisms, in combination with different polarization behavior will reflect in a lateral distribution function (LDF) depending on the orientation of the observer and a non-trivial fall-off of the radio signal as function of distance to the shower core.Comment: Proceedings of the ARENA2010 conference, Nantes, Franc

Radioelectric Field Features of Extensive Air Showers Observed with CODALEMA

Based on a new approach to the detection of radio transients associated with extensive air showers induced by ultra high energy cosmic rays, the experimental apparatus CODALEMA is in operation, measuring about 1 event per day corresponding to an energy threshold ~ 5. 10^16 eV. Its performance makes possible for the first time the study of radio-signal features on an event-by-event basis. The sampling of the magnitude of the electric field along a 600 meters axis is analyzed. It shows that the electric field lateral spread is around 250 m (FWHM). The possibility to determine with radio both arrival directions and shower core positions is discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic

Radio Detection of Cosmic Ray Air Showers with Codalema

Studies of the radio detection of Extensive Air Showers is the goal of the demonstrative experiment CODALEMA. Previous analysis have demonstrated that detection around $5.10^{16}$ eV was achieved with this set-up. New results allow for the first time to study the topology of the electric field associated to EAS events on a event by event basis.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures Proceedings of the Rencontres de Moriond, Very High Energy Phenomena in the Universe, La Thuile, Italy (March 12-19, 2005

Radio Detection of Extensive Air Showers with CODALEMA

The principle and performances of the CODALEMA experimental device, set up to study the possibility of high energy cosmic rays radio detection, are presented. Radio transient signals associated to cosmic rays have been identified, for which arrival directions and shower's electric field topologies have been extracted from the antenna signals. The measured rate, about 1 event per day, corresponds to an energy threshold around 5.10^16 eV. These results allow to determine the perspectives offered by the present experimental design for radiodetection of UHECR at a larger scale.Comment: 4 pages and 3 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of the 29th ICRC, Pune (2005

Radiodetection of Cosmic Ray Extensive Air Showers

We present the characteristics and performance of a demonstration experiment devoted to the observation of ultra high- energy cosmic ray extensive air showers using a radiodetection technique. In a first step, one antenna narrowed band filtered acting as trigger, with a 4 $\sigma$ threshold above sky background-level, was used to tag any radio transient in coincidence on the antenna array. Recently, the addition of 4 particle detectors has allowed us to observe cosmic ray events in coincidence with antennas

Radio Detection of Cosmic Ray Extensive Air Showers: present status of the CODALEMA experiment

Data acquisition and analysis for the CODALEMA experiment, in operation for more than one year, has provided improved knowledge of the characteristics of this new device. At the same time, an important effort has been made to develop processing techniques for extracting transient signals from data containing interference.Comment: september 200