Design of the Front End Electronics for the Infrared Camera of JEM-EUSO, and manufacturing and verification of the prototype model

The Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Extreme Universe Space Observatory (EUSO) will be launched and attached to the Japanese module of the International Space Station (ISS). Its aim is to observe UV photon tracks produced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays developing in the atmosphere and producing extensive air showers. The key element of the instrument is a very wide-field, very fast, large-lense telescope that can detect extreme energy particles with energy above $10^{19}$ eV. The Atmospheric Monitoring System (AMS), comprising, among others, the Infrared Camera (IRCAM), which is the Spanish contribution, plays a fundamental role in the understanding of the atmospheric conditions in the Field of View (FoV) of the telescope. It is used to detect the temperature of clouds and to obtain the cloud coverage and cloud top altitude during the observation period of the JEM-EUSO main instrument. SENER is responsible for the preliminary design of the Front End Electronics (FEE) of the Infrared Camera, based on an uncooled microbolometer, and the manufacturing and verification of the prototype model. This paper describes the flight design drivers and key factors to achieve the target features, namely, detector biasing with electrical noise better than $100 \mu$V from $1$ Hz to $10$ MHz, temperature control of the microbolometer, from $10^{\circ}$C to $40^{\circ}$C with stability better than $10$ mK over $4.8$ hours, low noise high bandwidth amplifier adaptation of the microbolometer output to differential input before analog to digital conversion, housekeeping generation, microbolometer control, and image accumulation for noise reduction

Assessing the skill of precipitation and temperature seasonal forecasts in Spain: windows of opportunity related to ENSO events

1. The skill of state-of-the-art operational seasonal forecast models in extratropical latitudes is assessed using a multimodel ensemble from the Development of a European Multimodel Ensemble System for Seasonalto- Interannual Prediction (DEMETER) project. In particular, probabilistic forecasts of surface precipitation and maximum temperature in Spain are analyzed using a high-resolution observation gridded dataset (Spain02). To this aim, a simple statistical test based on the observed and predicted tercile anomalies is used. First, the whole period 1960–2000 is considered and it is shown that the only significant skill is found for dry events in autumn. Then, the influence of ENSO events as a potential source of conditional predictability is studied and the validation to strong La Niña or El Niño periods is restricted. Skillful seasonal predictions are found in partial agreement with the observed teleconnections derived from the historical records. On the one hand, predictability is found in spring related to El Niño events for dry events over the south and the Mediterranean coast and for hot events in the southeast areas. In contrast, La Niña drives predictability in winter for dry events over the western part and for hot events in summer over the south and the Mediterranean coast. This study considers both the direct model outputs and the postprocessed predictions obtained using a statistical downscaling method based on analogs. In general, the use of the downscaling method outperforms the direct output for precipitation, whereas in the case of the temperature no improvement is obtained

Operations of and Future Plans for the Pierre Auger Observatory

Technical reports on operations and features of the Pierre Auger Observatory, including ongoing and planned enhancements and the status of the future northern hemisphere portion of the Observatory. Contributions to the 31st International Cosmic Ray Conference, Lodz, Poland, July 2009.Comment: Contributions to the 31st ICRC, Lodz, Poland, July 200

The Pierre Auger Observatory III: Other Astrophysical Observations

Astrophysical observations of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with the Pierre Auger ObservatoryComment: Contributions to the 32nd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Beijing, China, August 201

Measurement of the Depth of Maximum of Extensive Air Showers above 10^18 eV

We describe the measurement of the depth of maximum, Xmax, of the longitudinal development of air showers induced by cosmic rays. Almost four thousand events above 10^18 eV observed by the fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory in coincidence with at least one surface detector station are selected for the analysis. The average shower maximum was found to evolve with energy at a rate of (106 +35/-21) g/cm^2/decade below 10^(18.24 +/- 0.05) eV and (24 +/- 3) g/cm^2/decade above this energy. The measured shower-to-shower fluctuations decrease from about 55 to 26 g/cm^2. The interpretation of these results in terms of the cosmic ray mass composition is briefly discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication by PR

Reconstruction of inclined air showers detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

We describe the method devised to reconstruct inclined cosmic-ray air showers with zenith angles greater than $60^\circ$ detected with the surface array of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The measured signals at the ground level are fitted to muon density distributions predicted with atmospheric cascade models to obtain the relative shower size as an overall normalization parameter. The method is evaluated using simulated showers to test its performance. The energy of the cosmic rays is calibrated using a sub-sample of events reconstructed with both the fluorescence and surface array techniques. The reconstruction method described here provides the basis of complementary analyses including an independent measurement of the energy spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays using very inclined events collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: 27 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP