Feasibility of radar detection of extensive air showers
arXiv:1411.7295 · doi:10.1016/j.astropartphys.2015.07.003
Abstract
Reflection of radio waves off the short-lived plasma produced by the high-energy shower particles in the air is simulated, considering various radar setups and shower geometries. We show that the plasma produced by air showers has to be treated always as underdense. Therefore, we use the Thomson cross-section for scattering of radio waves corrected for molecular quenching and we sum coherently contributions of the reflected radio wave over the volume of the plasma disk to obtain the time evolution of the signal arriving at the receiver antenna. The received power and the spectral power density of the radar echo are analyzed. Based on the obtained results, we discuss possible modes of radar detection of extensive air showers. We conclude that the scattered signal is too weak for the radar method to provide an efficient and inexpensive method of air shower detection.
note added in proof, 47 pages, 15 figures, to be published in Astroparticle Physics
References in corpus (7)
- Radioelectric Field Features of Extensive Air Showers Observed with CODALEMA
- Observations of Microwave Continuum Emission from Air Shower Plasmas
- On the feasibility of RADAR detection of high-energy neutrino-induced showers in ice
- Telescope Array Radar (TARA) Observatory for Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
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Cited by in corpus (8)
- Radio detection of Cosmic-Ray Air Showers and High-Energy Neutrinos
- Observation of Radar Echoes From High-Energy Particle Cascades
- First Upper Limits on the Radar Cross Section of Cosmic-Ray Induced Extensive Air Showers
- Suggestion of Coherent Radio Reflections from an Electron-Beam Induced Particle Cascade
- The Radar Echo Telescope for Cosmic Rays: Pathfinder Experiment for a Next-Generation Neutrino Observatory
- Implementation of a custom time-domain firmware trigger for RADAR-based cosmic ray detection
- Particle-level model for radar based detection of high-energy neutrino cascades
- On the feasibility of RADAR detection of high-energy cosmic neutrinos