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Cosmic Rays

Cosmic Rays. History. 1785 Charles Coulomb, 1900 Elster and Geitel Charged body in air becomes discharged – there are ions in the atmosphere. 1902 Rutherford, McLennan, Burton: air is traversed by extremely penetrating radiation ( g rays excluded later).

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Cosmic Rays

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  1. Cosmic Rays

  2. History 1785 Charles Coulomb, 1900 Elster and Geitel Charged body in air becomes discharged – there are ions in the atmosphere 1902 Rutherford, McLennan, Burton: air is traversed by extremely penetrating radiation (g rays excluded later) 1912 Victor Hess Discovery of “Cosmic Radiation” in 5350m balloon flight, 1936 Nobel Prize 1933 Anderson Discovery of the positron in CRs – shared 1936 Nobel Prize with Hess 1933 Sir Arthur Compton Radiation intensity depends on magnetic latitude 1937 Street and Stevenson Discovery of the muon in CRs (207 times heavier than electron) 1938 Pierre Auger and Roland Maze Rays in detectors separated by 20 m (later 200m) arrive simultaneously 1985 Sekido and Elliot First correct explanation of what CR’s are Open question today: where do they come from ?

  3. Victor Hess, return from hisdecisive flight 1912 (reached 5350 m !)radiation increase > 2500m

  4. Satellite observations of primaries Primaries: energetic ions of all stable isotopes: 85% protons, 12% a particles Similar to solar elemental abundance distribution but differences due to spallation during travel through space (smoothed pattern) Li, Be, or B Cosmic Ray p or a C,N, or O(He in early universe) Major source of 6Li, 9Be, 10B in the Universe (some 7Li, 11B)

  5. NSCL Experiment for Li, Be, and B production by a+a collisions Mercer et al. PRC 63 (2000) 065805 170-600 MeV Identify and count Li,Be,B particles Measure cross section: how many nuclei are made per incident a particle

  6. Energies of primary cosmic rays ~E-2.7 Observable bysatellite ~E-3.0 ~E-3.3 ~E-2.7 Lower energiesdo not reach earth(but might get collected) UHECR’s: 40 events > 4e19 eV7 events > 1e20 eVRecord: October 15, 1991Fly’s Eye: 3e20 eV Man made accelerators

  7. Reminder: Physics Particle Zoo Leptons: Quarks: Baryons: 3 quarks Meson: quark + antiquark Force carriers (bosons) Strong: g (8), Weak : Z0,W+,W-, Electromagnetic: g Ordinary matter proton = uudneutron = ddu Nuclei = combinations of protons, neutrons, and electrons 26 ns lifetime – decay into m+ and nm p+ = ud Pions: 26 ns lifetime – decay into m- and nm p- = du p0 = uu + dd 1e-17 s lifetime – decay into gg

  8. Ground based observations Space Cosmic Ray (Ion, for example proton) Atmospheric Nucleus Earth’s atmosphere (about 50 secondaries after first collision) p+ p- po po g g p+ p- e+ e- m+ (~4 GeV, ~150/s/cm2) nm e- g Electromagnetic Shower Plus some:Neutrons14C (1965 Libby) Hadronic Shower (on earth mainly muons and neutrinos) (mainly g-rays)

  9. Cosmic ray muons on earth Lifetime: 2.2 ms – then decay into electron and neutrino Travel time from production in atmosphere (~15 km): ~50 mswhy do we see them ? Average energy: ~4 GeV (remember: 1 eV = 1.6e-19 J) Typical intensity: 150 per square meter and second Modulation of intensity with sun activity and atmosphericpressure ~0.1%

  10. Ground based observations Advantage: Can build larger detectors can therefore see rarer cosmic rays Disadvantage: Difficult to learn about primary Observation methods: 1) Particle detectors on earth surface Large area arrays to detect all particles in shower 2) Use Air as detector (Nitrogen fluorescence  UV light) Observe fluorescence with telescopes Particles detectable across ~6 kmIntensity drops by factor of 10 ~500m away from core

  11. Particle detector arrays Largest so far: AGASA (Japan) 111 scintillation detectors over 100 km2 Other example: Casa Mia, Utah:

  12. Air Scintillation detector 1981 – 1992: Fly’s Eye, Utah1999 - : HiRes, same site • 2 detector systems for stereo view • 42 and 22 mirrors a 2m diameter • each mirror reflects light into 256 photomultipliers • see’s showers up to 20-30 km height

  13. Fly’s eye

  14. Fly’s Eye

  15. Fly’s eye principle

  16. Pierre Auger Project Combination of both techniques Site: Argentina + ?. Construction started, 18 nations involvedLargest detector ever: 3000 km2,1600 detectors 600 out of 1600 particle detectors setup (now the largest detector !)2 out of 4 fluorescence telescope sites (6 detectors each) run Observes already 500 showers/day

  17. Other planned next generation observatories Idea: observe fluorescence from space to use larger detector volume OWL (NASA)(Orbiting Wide Angle Light Collectors) EUSO(ESA for ISS)(Extreme Universe Space Observatory)

  18. Origin of cosmic rays with E < 1018 eV Direction cannot be determined because of deflection in galactic magnetic field M83 spiral galaxy Galactic magnetic field Typical strength: 10s of micro Gauss (intergalactic 10 nano Gauss, earth 0.3-0.6)

  19. Precollapse structure of massive star Iron core collapses and triggers supernova explosion  release of 1051 ergs (1 foe) (ejecta speeds ~10000 km/s – 56Fe nucleus at that speed has only 30 MeV energy)

  20. Supernova 1987A by Hubble Space Telescope Jan 1997

  21. Cosmic ray acceleration in supernova shockfronts No direct evidence but model works up to 1018 eV: • acceleration up to 1015 eV in one explosion, 1018eV multiple remnants • correct spectral index, knee can be explained by leakage of light particles out of Galaxy (but: hint of index discrepancy for H,He ???) • some evidence that acceleration takes place from radio and X-ray observations • explains galactic origin that is observed (less cosmic rays in SMC)

  22. Supernova 1987A seen by Chandra X-ray observatory, 2000 Shock wave hits inner ring of material and creates intense X-ray radiation

  23. Ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) E > 5 x 1019 eV Record event: 3 x 1020 eV 1991 with Fly’s eyeAbout 14 events with E > 1020 known Good news: sufficiently energetic so that source direction can be reconstructed (true ?) Isotropic, not correlated with mass of galaxy or local super cluster

  24. So UHECRs come from cosmological distances ? g g g g g 2.7 K Cosmic microwave background HighEnergy LowerEnergy p p N p Threshold for photo pion production: 4 x 1019 eV Higher energy protons would be slowed down by this effect by 1/eover 15 Mpc. • If cosmic rays come from >> 15 Mpc distances, energy cutoff at ~1020 eV (Greisen Zatsepin Kuz’min cutoff or GZK cutoff)

  25. Observations of UHECRs ? AGASA Data no GZK cutoff HIRES Data  See GZK cutoff If AGASA is correct then there is a problem with isotropy of events 1. problem with systematic errors in energy determination ? 2. Maybe intergalactic magnetic fields as high as ~micro Gauss then even UHECR from nearby galaxies would appear isotropic

  26. The Mystery • Isotropy implies UHECR’s come from very far away • But – UHECR’s cannot come from far away because collisions with the cosmic microwave background radiation would slow down or destroy them (most should come from closer than 20 MPc or so – otherwise cutoff at 1020 eV this is called the GZK cutoff (after Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin) • Other problem: we don’t know of any place in the cosmos that could accelerate particles to such energies (means: no working model) Speculations include: • Colliding Galaxies • Rapidly spinning giant black holes (AGN’s) • Highly magnetized, spinning neutron stars • New, unknown particles that do not interact with cosmic microwave background • Related to gamma ray bursts ?

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