First observations of speed of light tracks by a fluorescence detector looking down on the atmosphere

Abstract

EUSO-Balloon is a pathfinder mission for the Extreme Universe Space Observatory onboard the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM-EUSO). It was launched on the moonless night of the 25${}^{th}$ of August 2014 from Timmins, Canada. The flight ended successfully after maintaining the target altitude of 38 km for five hours. One part of the mission was a 2.5 hour underflight using a helicopter equipped with three UV light sources (LED, xenon flasher and laser) to perform an inflight calibration and examine the detectors capability to measure tracks moving at the speed of light. We describe the helicopter laser system and details of the underflight as well as how the laser tracks were recorded and found in the data. These are the first recorded laser tracks measured from a fluorescence detector looking down on the atmosphere. Finally, we present a first reconstruction of the direction of the laser tracks relative to the detector.

arXiv comment18 pages, 14 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Measurement of the pressure dependence of air fluorescence emission induced by electrons
• White paper on EUSO-SPB2

Cited by in corpus (8)

• EUSO-SPB1 Mission and Science
• Expected Performance of the EUSO-SPB2 Fluorescence Telescope
• Development of a cosmic ray oriented trigger for the fluorescence telescope on EUSO-SPB2
• The EUSO-SPB2 Fluorescence Telescope for the Detection of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
• Mini-EUSO data acquisition and control software
• Developments and results in the context of the JEM-EUSO program obtained with the ESAF Simulation and Analysis Framework
• EUSO-SPB2 Fluorescence Telescope in-flight performance and preliminary results
• Results of the EUSO-SPB1 flight