Prospects for direct cosmic ray mass measurements through the Gerasimova-Zatsepin effect

The Solar radiation field may break apart ultra high energy cosmic nuclei, after which both remnants will be deflected in the interplanetary magnetic field in different ways. This process is known as the Gerasimova-Zatsepin effect after its discoverers. We investigate the possibility of using the detection of the separated air showers produced by a pair of remnant particles as a way to identify the species of the original cosmic ray primary directly. Event rates for current and proposed detectors are estimated, and requirements are defined for ideal detectors of this phenomenon. Detailed computational models of the disintegration and deflection processes for a wide range of cosmic ray primaries in the energy range of 10^16 to 10^20 eV are combined with sophisticated detector models to calculate realistic detection rates. The fraction of Gerasimova-Zatsepin events is found to be of the order of 10^-5 of the cosmic ray flux, implying an intrinsic event rate of around 0.07 km^-2 sr^-1 yr^-1 in the energy range defined. Event rates in any real experiment, however, existing or under construction, will probably not exceed 10^-2 yr^-1.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

The LOPES experiment - recent results, status and perspectives

The LOPES experiment at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has been taking radio data in the frequency range from 40 to 80 MHz in coincidence with the KASCADE-Grande air shower detector since 2003. Various experimental configurations have been employed to study aspects such as the energy scaling, geomagnetic dependence, lateral distribution, and polarization of the radio emission from cosmic rays. The high quality per-event air shower information provided by KASCADE-Grande has been the key to many of these studies and has even allowed us to perform detailed per-event comparisons with simulations of the radio emission. In this article, we give an overview of results obtained by LOPES, and present the status and perspectives of the ever-evolving experiment.Comment: Proceedings of the ARENA2010 conference, Nantes, Franc

Astronomy Astrophysics Prospects for direct cosmic ray mass measurements through the Gerasimova-Zatsepin effect (Research Note)

ABSTRACT Context. The solar radiation field may break ultra-high-energy cosmic nuclei apart, after which both remnants will be deflected in the interplanetary magnetic field in different ways. This process is known as the Gerasimova-Zatsepin effect after its discoverers. Aims. We investigate the possibility of using the detection of the separated air showers produced by a pair of remnant particles as a way to identify the species of the original cosmic ray primary directly. Event rates for current and proposed detectors are estimated, and requirements are defined for ideal detectors of this phenomenon. Methods. Detailed computational models of the disintegration and deflection processes for a wide range of cosmic ray primaries in the energy range of 10 16 to 10 20 eV were combined with sophisticated detector models to calculate realistic detection rates. Results. The fraction of Gerasimova-Zatsepin events is found to be approximately 10 −5 of the cosmic ray flux, implying an intrinsic event rate of around 0.07 km −2 sr −1 yr −1 in the defined energy range. Event rates in any real experiment, whether existing or under construction, will probably not exceed 10 −2 yr −1

Cosmic Ray Air Shower Detection with LOPES

Item does not contain fulltext6 p