Speaker
Description
Cosmic rays are the most extreme particles in the Universe and are detectable on Earth. The radio emission produced by cosmic rays when they interact with the Earth’s atmosphere is an excellent tracer of their properties. The low radio frequency interference environment of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) makes this instrument ideal for detecting and measuring this radio emission and therefore the study of high energy cosmic rays. From the radio information, the characteristics of the particle such as energy, incident direction, and species have to be reconstructed, aided by the use of air shower simulations. However, the pulses produced by these air showers occur on timescales of the order of 15 ns and the standard output time resolution of the MWA is 100 microseconds. In this talk, I present a new approach that reconstructs MWA voltages to a time resolution of 15 ns and I describe the results from the first detection run. This approach will not only enable the detection of cosmic rays but will also provide a new view of the radio environment of the Murchison Radio Observatory at these timescales.
