Radio interferometry applied to the observation of cosmic-ray induced extensive air showers

Abstract

We developed a radio interferometric technique for the observation of extensive air showers initiated by cosmic particles. In this proof-of-principle study we show that properties of extensive air showers can be derived with high accuracy in a straightforward manner. When time synchronisation below $\sim$1 ns between different receivers can be achieved, direction reconstruction resolution of $<0.2^{\circ }$ and resolution on the depth of shower maximum of $<10$ g/cm${}^2$ are obtained over the full parameter range studied, with even higher accuracy for inclined incoming directions. In addition, by applying the developed method to dense arrays of radio antennas, the energy threshold for the radio detection of extensive air showers can be significantly lowered. The proposed method can be incorporated in operational and future cosmic particle observatories and with its high accuracy it has the potential to play a crucial role in unravelling the composition of the ultra-high-energy cosmic-particle flux.

8 pages, 4 figures. Added figures/references with respect to v1

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Cited by in corpus (11)

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• A high-precision interpolation method for pulsed radio signals from cosmic-ray air showers
• Framework and Tools for the Simulation and Analysis of the Radio Emission from Air Showers at IceCube
• Science with the Global Cosmic-ray Observatory (GCOS)
• Radio wavefront of very inclined extensive air-showers: a simulation study for extended and sparse radio arrays
• A LOFAR-style reconstruction of cosmic-ray air showers with SKA-Low
• Radio Detection of ultra-high-energy Cosmic-Ray Air Showers
• Aperture correction for Beamforming in radiometric detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
• Observational strategies for ultrahigh-energy neutrinos: the importance of deep sensitivity for detection and astronomy