"The endless multiple voices fugue of the Universe”
The 12th Cosmic Ray International Seminar (CRIS 2022) will be held in Napoli, Italy, 12h - 16th September 2022. The meeting will focus fundamental topics in astroparticle physics with specific emphasis on the new-born multimessenger astronomy studies.
The conference is jointly organized by the Napoli and Catania Divisions of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), by the Department of Physics “E. Pancini” of the University of Napoli Federico II, by the Department of Physics and Astronomy “E. Majorana” of the University of Catania, and by the Department of Physics and Chemistry “E. Segrè” of the University of Palermo.
CRIS 2022, following the experience of previous editions, aims to present overviews of existing data and reports from the present and future experiments. Talks will cover both theoretical/phenomenological and experimental/observational aspects, in order to give an exhaustive overview of this complex field. The discussion about the present status and future plans requires to involve theorists and experimentalists working on various messengers. Thus, the progress in astroparticle physics achieved through space and ground-based detectors is expected to play a major role in the scientific program of CRIS 2022.
The program will include invited lectures, contributed talks and posters, as well.
As in the past, the CRIS 2022 Conference is addressed to scientists in the field as well as to PhD and graduate students. We will encourage lively and informal discussions among participants.
The participation of young researchers is warmly welcome. The best contribution presented by a young participant (graduate and PhD student or under 30 years-old post-doc) will be awarded
The RICAP 2022 Conference in Rome, 6-9 September 2022, is just before CRIS 2022. Don't miss it!
Local Organizing Committee |
International Advisory Committee |
Carla Aramo Mario Buscemi Rossella Caruso Roberta Colalillo Giovanni Marsella Valentina Scotti Cristina Tuvè Laura Valore
|
Roberto Battiston Marica Branchesi Antonella Castellina Francesco Giordano Fausto Guarino Francis Halzen Antonio Insolia Teresa Montaruli Angela Olinto Shigeru Yoshida Enrique Zas |
Chairpersons
Antonio Insolia - University of Catania
Fausto Guarino - University of Napoli "Federico II"
I would argue that very high energy (VHE) gamma rays play a key role in the multimessenger exploration of the universe. On the cosmic-ray side, they allow us to study the emission mechanisms of Galactic accelerators with an unprecedented level of detail. On the neutrino side, we have now a handful of potential Galactic Pevatrons, and also VHE gamma rays were observed from a flaring active galaxy possibly in association with a high energy muon neutrino. Finally, it has been demonstrated that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are capable of emitting VHE gamma rays. GRBs are an important component of the multimessenger exploration. Not only GRBs are one of the long-standing candidate sources of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays, but also a short-duration GRB was detected in coincidence with gravitational waves originated from the coalescence of a binary neutron star system. While no VHE gamma rays were observed from this merger, the extracted upper limits provide important constrains to the VHE emission models for such events. In this talk, I will briefly describe the main features and characteristics of the current VHE gamma-ray detectors, and present a selected number of results from them that are most relevant to the multimessenger perspective.
Since July 2021, the LHAASO experiment is fully operational and collecting data.
The Nature paper in 2021, revealing 12 VHE new sources, was just the start of
LHAASO science, revealing the huge scientific potential of this experiment.
Many Analysis efforts in different areas are ongoing and several results are already published.
In this contribution, we will show some highlights from LHAASO science together with the status of calibrations and performances achieved.
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope started its science
operations on August 2008. The Large Area Telescope (LAT) is the main instrument onboard Fermi. It is an imaging, wide field-of-view pair conversion telescope able to detect photons in the energy range from about 20MeV up to the TeV region and it is still in excellent operating condition after 14 years of observation. The Fermi LAT is providing an increasingly detailed portrait of the Universe's most extraordinary phenomena and plays a crucial role in the era of multimessenger astrophysics. A selection of the most relevant scientific results obtained by the Fermi LAT telescope will be presented.
The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO) is the proposal for a new ground-based gamma-ray instrument in the Southern Hemisphere, which will use an array of water-Cherenkov based particle detectors to provide continuous monitoring and regular scanning of a large portion of the sky at the very- and ultra-high-energies (VHE and UHE, respectively). At the low energy side, SWGO aims to push the observational range of wide-field ground-based gamma-ray facilities down to a few hundred GeV, thus bridging the gap between space and ground-based facilities in the monitoring of the VHE sky. In so doing, SWGO could become a unique instrument in the search for short time-scale transient phenomena, being an important addition to the global network of multi-messenger astrophysics. In the high energy domain, on the contrary, it will benefit from the optimal coverage of the Galactic Plane to map the distribution of UHE sources in the inner parts of the Galactic disk and close to the Galactic Center, leading to an extraordinary improvement of our ability to identify their most likely counterparts. In this contribution, we will describe the potential of SWGO to constrain the physics of VHE emission and particle acceleration in gamma-ray sources powered by relativistic jets and energetic shocks. We will discuss its role in our understanding of the origin of the spectrum of high energy particles and its contribution to the global network of multi-messenger facilities.
The Crystal Eye idea comes from the follow-up of two gravitational waves events: GW170817 and GW190425. Both events were referred to neutron star mergers. In the first case Fermi-GBM and INTEGRAL claimed the detection of a short Gamma Ray Burst (GRB 170817A) and in order to follow up and target the GW electromagnetic counterparts, a huge effort has been made by other satellites and ground-based experiments. In the second case, only INTEGRAL claimed the detection of a faint GRB (GRB 190425) while Fermi satellite was in Earth occultation.
Crystal Eye is a space-based X and γ ray all-sky monitor sensitive in the 10 keV - 30 MeV energy range. Its baseline configuration consists of a hemisphere, made by 112 pixels, with a wide field of view (FOV, about 6 sr), a full sky coverage and a very large effective area (6 times Fermi-GBM at 1 MeV) in the energy range of interest. Given the pixel structure – a two-layer crystal scintillator and a plastic scintillator veto layer, and the hemispherical design – Crystal Eye concentrates a pointing capability approaching that of a γ ray telescope and the sky coverage of an all-sky monitor in a single detector. Moreover, the use of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) at the place of traditional PMs, besides being a challenge for their qualification for space missions, allows a more compact and less power-consuming design.
A Crystal Eye pathfinder has been designed and realized to be tested in view of the mission on the Space Rider by ESA. The prototype is made by 4 pixels. The mission is aimed at testing in the space environment the LYSO crystals, the MPPC-arrays and the DAQ board.
Started at University of Naples “Federico II”, the collaboration now includes GSSI and is growing.
Recent detections of gravitational wave signals and neutrinos from gamma-ray sources have ushered in the era of multi-messenger astronomy, while highlighting the importance of gamma-ray observations for this emerging field. AMEGO-X, the All-sky Medium Energy Gamma-Ray Observatory eXplorer, is an MeV gamma-ray instrument proposed to the 2021 call for medium-sized explorer missions. AMEGO-X will survey the sky in the energy range from 100 keV to 1 GeV with unprecedented sensitivity, as well as detecting and localizing transient events such as gamma-ray bursts and magnetar activity down to 25 keV. AMEGO-X will detect gamma-ray photons both via Compton interactions and pair production processes, bridging the "sensitivity gap" between hard X-rays and high-energy gamma rays. AMEGO-X will provide important contributions to multi-messenger science and time-domain gamma-ray astronomy, studying e.g. high-redshift blazars, which are probable sources of astrophysical neutrinos, and gamma-ray bursts. I will present an overview of the instrument and anticipated science program.
Star-forming and starburst galaxies are well-motivated astrophysical emitters of high-energy neutrinos and gamma-rays through hadronic collisions. Indeed, they are well-known cosmic-ray "reservoirs" thanks to their high magnetic fields capable to confine high-energy protons within their cores. Interestingly, the cosmic-ray transport in such extreme environments can be affected by the elastic scatterings with sub-GeV Dark Matter (DM). In this talk, I will present this scenario and investigate the implications of the DM-proton interactions for the diffuse high-energy neutrino and gamma-ray flux as well as for the point-like emission from nearby galaxies. I will show that the non-observation of the expected features in the gamma-ray and high-energy neutrino measurements implies stringent constraints on the DM parameter space, thus providing a complementary and alternative way for DM investigation with respect to standard direct and indirect searches.
Stereoscopic observations with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) started 20 years ago. Installed at a pristine site in the Khomas highland of Namibia, H.E.S.S. is providing unprecedented observations of the very-high-energy gamma-ray sky in the Southern hemisphere. The early phase of the experiment was largely dedicated to a deep scan of the Galactic Plan, revealing a surprisingly large and rich population of TeV emitters. Observations of variable and flaring sources led to detections of enormous flares of extragalactic sources like PKS 2155-304. The importance of the program dedicated to transient phenomena has been further underlined in 2012 by the installation of a 28m telescope, the largest optical telescope in the world, in the center of the original array of four 12m telescopes. It allowed to lower the energy threshold and reduced the reaction time to external multi-wavelength and multi-messenger alerts. Dedicated software developments like a fully automatic alert system and a real-time analysis of the incoming data streams further improved the capabilities of the experiment, enabling several breakthrough discoveries over the last years.
Focussing on time domain astronomy and multi-messenger connections, I will discuss the latest highlights of the H.E.S.S. experiment. I will present current state-of-the-art target-of-opportunity observations searching for high-energy gamma-ray emission from a variety of sources including gamma-ray bursts, Galactic novae, gravitational waves, and high-energy neutrinos.
The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) is an array
of four 12m Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs), located at the Fred
Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona, USA, that has been in operation since
2007. VERITAS conducts research in a variety of areas including Galactic science
(supernova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae, binary systems), extra-galactic science
(jetted AGN, gamma-ray burst and fast radio burst searches), multimessenger
follow-ups and astroparticle physics, including Dark Matter searches. VERITAS has
also recently utilised its optical capabilities for measurements of asteroid
transits and stellar intensity interferometry. This talk will cover recent VERITAS
highlights and results.
MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov telescopes) is a system of two Cherenkov telescopes located on the Canary island of La Palma (Spain), at the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, and operating in stereo mode since 2009. their design and dedicated trigger system allows to reach an energy threshold of 50 GeV, which can be lowered to 15 GeV when using the Sum-Trigger-II. This made it possible to observe sources at the limit of detection for Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes ( z~1) and to deeply study the Geminga pulsar tail emission. A strategy of alert follow-ups from other facilities and the fast reposition of the telescopes made possible the detection of the first neutrino associated with a blazar and of gamma-ray bursts in the very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray band, respectively. Moreover, the discovery of GRB190114C allowed a test of general relativity through the study of the Lorentz Invariant Violation. Recently MAGIC observed the first VHE gamma-ray nova, RS Ophiuchi, revealing that protons are accelerated to hundreds of gigaelectronvolts in the nova shock. In this talk we will go through the MAGIC recent highlights in the study of galactic and extragalactic sources, spanning from multimessenger astronomy to astroparticle and fundamental physics.
In the last decades an incredible amount of evidence for the existence of dark matter has been accumulating. At the same time, many efforts have been undertaken to try to identify what dark matter is.
Indirect searches look at places in the Universe where dark matter is known to be abundant and seek for possible annihilation or decay signatures. Indirect searches with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) are playing a crucial role in constraining the nature of the DM particle through the study of their annihilation into gamma rays from different astrophysical structures. In this talk I will review
the status of the search with IACTs and I will describe the sensitivity projections for dark matter searches on the various targets taking into account the latest instrument response functions expected for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) together with estimations for the systematic uncertainties from diffuse astrophysical and cosmic-ray backgrounds.
The Large-Sized Telescopes (LSTs) of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) are designed for gamma-ray studies focusing on low energy threshold, high flux sensitivity and rapid telescope repositioning. The LST has a tessellated parabolic mirror of 23 m diameter and a weight of about 100 tons, with the capability of pointing to any position in the sky in 20 seconds or less to catch transients. A 2 ton 3x3 m camera, placed in the focus of the mirror, is equipped with 1855 high QE PMTs corresponding to a FoV of about 4.5 degrees. LSTs will dominate the CTA performance between 20 GeV and approximately 200 GeV. The first LST (LST-1) was inaugurated in La Palma (Spain) in October 2018 and since then it is in the commissioning phase. In this contribution the current status and performance of the LST-1 will be shown together with a glance at some of the first physics results. In the conclusions, the outlook of the project will be presented.
The Schwarzschild Couder Telescope (SCT) is a dual mirror Medium-Sized telescope proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next-generation very-high energy (from about 20 GeV to 300 TeV) gamma-ray observatory. The SCT design consists of a dual-mirror optics and a high-resolution camera with a field of view (FoV) of 8 degrees, which will allow exceptional performance in terms of angular resolution and background rejection. A prototype telescope (pSCT) has been installed and is operating at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in Arizona, USA. Its camera is partially equipped with silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) matrices and covers a FoV of 2.7°. The pSCT has recently successfully detected the Crab Nebula with a statistical significance of 8.6 standard deviations. The upgrade of the pSCT focal plane is now ongoing, aimed to equip the full camera with upgraded sensors and electronics, enhancing the telescope field of view from the current 2.7° to the final 8°. In this presentation, an overview of the pSCT project and obtained results will be given, together with the camera upgrade status and expected performance.
High energy neutrino astronomy has been blooming. In addition to the possible identification of the blazar and Seyfert II galaxies as neutrino emitters, the present data has indicated some hints to characterize or constrain the cosmic ray origin. In this talk we demonstrate how the neutrino data has constrained the cosmic ray origin. The two observational facts that the astrophysical neutrino background flux is comparable to that of UHE cosmic rays and that blazar galaxies are not the major class of neutrino sources suggest our next move in the neutrino measurements in TeV and PeV sky to understand the cosmic ray origin. We also review the technical developments for the future neutrino detectors beyond the present IceCube observatory, with some focus on optical sensors for Cherenkov detection.
Hyper-Kamiokande (Hyper-K) is a next generation underground large water Cherenkov detector. Its tank will be filled with 260,000 metric tons of ultra-pure water with a fiducial volume of 0.19 Mtons, which is about 8 times larger than that of its predecessor Super-Kamiokande. In its water volume, Cherenkov light will be produced by neutrino interactions and detected by newly developed photo sensors installed in a dedicated frame.
Two different kinds of photo-detectors systems are considered for Hyper-K: 20-inch PMT and multi-PMT (mPMT). In particular, the mPMT system consists of a pressure sealed vessel with 19 3-inch PMTs installed inside. This configuration was implemented for the first time in the KM3NeT experiment, and has been demonstrated to improve the Hyper-K physics capabilities. A mPMT Optical Module is instrumented with a readout electronic system and a power circuit for the PMTs and electronics. The mPMTs offer several advantages over the standard 20-inch PMTs, i.e., increased granularity, reduced dark rate, weaker sensitivity to Earth’s magnetic field, improved timing resolution and directional information with an almost isotropic field of view.
Hyper-K will be located in the Kamioka mine (Japan), where a dedicated cavern under a 600m-high mountain is being excavated for the installation of the detector. This configuration reduces the cosmic muon flux and its spallation products, which are the dominant background sources for analyses of low-energy astrophysical neutrinos. With its fruitful physics research program, Hyper-K will play a highly significant role in the next neutrino physics frontier, including the neutrino astrophysics program, providing important information from its measurements.
The development of a mPMT module for Hyper-K and the physics potential of the Hyper-K neutrino astrophysics program will be discussed in this contribution.
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) will be the largest ever built liquid scintillator detector for neutrino physics. JUNO is a 20kton liquid scintillator detector, equipped with ~18000 large PMTs and ~26000 small PMTs. It will be sensitive to various neutrino sources and will give a unique contribution to the observation of the all-flavor neutrino flux from a Galactic core collapse supernova (CCSN). JUNO can register with large statistics the next CCSN neutrinos and also pre-supernova (pre-SN) neutrinos through several interactions, among which inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton can provide information of energy spectra of all flavors. Furthermore, JUNO will be able to provide an alert during the pre-SN phase.
The physics potentials of the JUNO observatory and its capability to detect Supernova’s neutrinos will be discussed in this talk.
The ANTARES neutrino telescope has taken high-quality data for over 15 years, starting in 2007 and ending its operation in 2022.
During this period, it has been the most sensitive detector for cosmic neutrino fluxes from the Southern Sky below 100 TeV, where significant emission induced by Galactic Cosmic Rays is expected.
In addition, it has shown the great potential of under-water neutrino telescopes in various searches involving atmospheric neutrinos and neutrinos from Dark Matter annihilation and/or decays.
This contribution provides an overview of the results achieved over these 15 years and an outlook on what is still to come once the analyses of the data will be finalised.
Baikal-GVD (Gigaton Volume Detector) is a neutrino telescope aimed to observe high energy (TeV–PeV) neutrino, as well as to identify and explore their sources. It has been deployed in Lake Baikal in the south-eastern part of Russia and taking data since 2015 when the first cluster of 288 optical modules was built. The Baikal-GVD optical modules equipped with 10-inch photo-multiplier tubes are immersed in water at the depths spanning from 750 m to 1300 m below the surface and register Cherenkov light emitted by secondary particles produced in neutrino interactions in vicinity of the telescope. As of 2022, the detector consists of ten clusters, making it the largest neutrino telescope in the Northern Hemisphere. It is planned to continue deploying new clusters. The talk will cover the telescope design and recent physical results.
In this contribution, we present the expectations of the full detector KM3NeT/ARCA for particular Starburst Galaxies signals, both as a diffuse signal and as point-like excess. To describe the diffuse flux, we use a recent theoretical model, also developed by some of the authors of this contribution, which implements a “blending” of spectral indexes to describe the high energy spectral energy distribution. For the point-like search approach, we considered the most promising local starburst galaxies to be observed as point-like neutrino excesses: NGC 1068, the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Circinus Galaxy. For the diffuse analysis, we provide the 5 year differential sensitivity for two ARCA building blocks, considering both track and shower events, in the range of 100 GeV - 10 PeV. For the point like analysis, we provide the 6 year differential sensitivity for two ARCA building blocks, only considering track events in the range of 1 TeV - 10 PeV. We found that ARCA has the potential to constrain the selected phenomenological scenarios, showing the minimum of the sensitivity where the theoretical spectral energy distributions are expected to peak. This could provide evidence of the link between star-forming processes and hadronic emissions.
The KM3NeT experiment is a neutrino telescope which makes use of photomultiplier tubes to detect the Cherenkov radiation emitted by charged particles.
The first interaction of this light with the detector occurs at the photocathodes of the photomultiplier tubes, is then of primary importance to have the most complete characterisation of these elements.
An improved version of the former R12199-02 model by Hamamatsu, named R14374-02, will be used until de completion of the experiment.
In this study we characterise one thousand of PMTs for the timing properties, dark rate and pulse response by using a dedicated apparatus.
We report the quantum efficiency response spectrum for two hundred elements and we compare it with the one provided at two wavelengths by the producer. This study will provide a statistically solid measurement of a quantity that is important and required for the numerical simulations of the detector response.
While other neutrino telescopes use optical modules comprising a single large 10” PMT
in a 17” glass sphere, KM3NeT features a novel design with 31 small PMTs with a 3”
photocathode diameter, along with calibration devices and the associated electronics. The
new design provides multiple benefits, such as an improved photocathode area, equivalent to
the effective area of three 10” PMTs, an almost uniform angular coverage and a sensitivity
to the direction of the detected photons. The calibration devices allow for a precise position
and timing calibrations of the optical modules, improving the overall performance of the
whole detector. The modules are assembled and integrated at eight different integration
sites. To ensure that each module performs at the required standards and given the amount
of modules - more than 6000 - needed for the ARCA and ORCA detector, the KM3Net
collaboration has implemented a distributed production model with well-defined integration,
documentation, testing and quality control procedures that every integration site has to
follow. Moreover, the KM3NeT quality plan comprise a protocol to track and handle any
issue that may occur during the production. In this talk I will present the characteristics
of the novel multi-PMT optical module of KM3NeT and the integration procedure. I will
also describe the challenges met during the implementation of the distributed production
model and the performance of the KM3NeT optical modules.
Detecting ultra-high-energy cosmic particles is critical to understanding the origin and properties of sources that can create such phenomenon. However, at the highest energies the particle flux is very low, and so a detection method that can use large areas as a target medium is highly valuable. Moreover, the features of the primary particle must be reconstructable using the data collected. The radio detection technique fills these criteria and is well established in the context of detecting cosmic rays. Programs at LOFAR and Auger have demonstrated that energy, arrival direction, and point of maximum development of the corresponding air shower can all be reconstructed well. This technique is also being used to try to detect the highest energy neutrinos, making use of Antarctic and Greenlandic ice as a target medium. In this talk, the radio detection technique and state of the field will be presented.
Upcoming neutrino telescopes may discover ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic neutrinos, with energies beyond 100 PeV, in the next 10--20 years. Finding their sources would expose the long-sought origin of UHE cosmic rays. We search for sources by looking for multiplets of UHE neutrinos arriving from similar directions. Our forecasts are state-of-the-art, geared at neutrino radio-detection in IceCube-Gen2. They account for detector energy and angular response, and for critical, but uncertain backgrounds. We report powerful insight. Sources at declination of $-45^\circ$ to $0^\circ$ will be easiest to discover. Discovering even one steady-state source in 10 years would disfavor most known steady-state source classes as dominant. Discovering no transient source would disfavor most known transient source classes as dominant. Our results aim to inform the design of upcoming detectors.
Primordial Black Holes are Black holes formed in the early universe. They evaporate emitting all the elementary particles whose mass is lower than the Primordial Black Holes temperature. We focused on PBHs whose mass is the range $[5×10^{14},8×10^{15}]$g. We studied their neutrinos emission. These neutrinos can interact via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) producing a signal in multi-ton Dark Matter direct detection experiments. We show that is possible to set bounds on the Primordial Black Holes abundance. We briefly discuss the emission of light Dark Matter species due to the evaporation of Primordial Black Holes.
The Pierre Auger Observatory has been detecting ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) for more than fifteen years. An essential feature of the Observatory is its hybrid design: cosmic rays above 1017eV are detected through the observation of the associated air showers with different and complementary techniques, from surface detector arrays and fluorescence telescopes to radio antennas. The analyses of the multi-detector data have enabled high-statistics and high-precision studies of the energy spectrum, mass composition and distribution of arrival directions of UHECRs. The resulting picture is summarized in this contribution. While no discrete source of UHECRs has been identified so far, the extragalactic origin of the particles has been recently determined from the arrival directions above 8 EeV, and the ring is closing around nearby astrophysical sites. Besides, the established upper limits on fluxes of UHE neutrinos and photons have implications on dark matter and cosmological aspects that are also presented in this contribution.
Operating since 2004, the Pierre Auger Observatory has yielded several important results. The suppression of the flux around 5x1019 eV is now confirmed without any doubt, a large-scale dipole anisotropy has been found for energies above 8x1018 eV, as well as an indication for some intermediate-scale anisotropy at the highest energies. Furthermore, strong limits have been placed on ultra-high-energy photons and neutrinos.
In order to elucidate the origin of the flux suppression at the highest energies and search for composition-enhanced anisotropies, the Auger Collaboration is currently upgrading the Observatory. In the framework of the upgrade, called AugerPrime, the array of 1660 water-Cherenkov detectors is equipped with plastic scintillators, allowing us to enhance the composition sensitivity. The station electronics is also upgraded, including better timing with up-to-date GPS receivers, higher sampling frequency, and increased dynamic range. Currently, more than 25% of the surface detectors have been upgraded, and the commissioning studies are well advanced.
In this paper, the design of the AugerPrime surface detectors will be presented, and the performance obtained from the analysis of the first data will be discussed.
The Telescope Array is a hybrid cosmic ray detector utilizing both batteries of fluorescence telescopes and a large array of scintillator surface detectors to measure the properties of extensive air showers initiated by ultra high energy cosmic rays when they enter the Earth's atmosphere. Located in central Utah, USA, the Telescope Array is the largest cosmic ray detector in the northern hemisphere. Following evidence of a hot spot in the arrival direction of ultra high energy cosmic rays, the Telescope Array is presently expanding from 700 sq km to 2800 sq km. The status of spectral, composition, and source search measurements will be presented in addition to an update on the deployment of the TAx4 detectors.
Despite intense observational efforts and a series of important results in the last two decades, the study of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) remains one of the most challenging in astronomy both because their flux is extremely low (one particle per m2 per billion year at the highest known energies) and because their macroscopic energies (tens of Joules) still do not provide large enough rigidities to allow quasi-rectilinear propagation in the Galactic (and extragalactic) magnetic fields. As a consequence, no direct detection of their sources has been possible thus far and their astrophysical origin as well as their acceleration mechanism remain a mystery. To take up the challenge new UHECR observational means appear necessary. The JEM-EUSO Collaboration has undertaken to open the space road to UHECR studies. For more than a decade it has been developing a realistic program to measure the UHECRs from space with unprecedented aperture. Several intermediate missions have already been completed (on the ground: EUSO-TA; under stratospheric balloons: EUSO-Balloon and EUSO-SPB1; in space: TUS) or are active on-board the ISS (MINI-EUSO), and others are in preparation for flight (EUSO-SPB2), under review (K-EUSO), and proposed for the next decade (POEMMA). We will report on the obtained and expected results of these missions and the status of the JEM-EUSO program based on the demonstrated performance of its now mature technology.
Mini-EUSO is a telescope observing the Earth from the International Space Station since 2019. The instrument employs a Fresnel-lens optical system and a focal surface composed of 36 Multi-Anode Photomultiplier tubes, 64 channels each, for a total of 2304 channels with single photon counting sensitivity. Mini-EUSO also contains two ancillary cameras to complement measurements in the near infrared and visible ranges. The scientific objectives of the mission span from the search for extensive air showers (EAS) generated by Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) with a energies above 1021 eV, the search for nuclearites and Strange Quark Matter to the study of atmospheric phenomena such as Transient Luminous Events, meteors and meteoroids. Mini-EUSO can map the night-time Earth in the near UV range (predominantly between 290 - 430 nm), with a spatial resolution of about 6.3 km (full field of view equal to 44°) and a maximum temporal resolution of 2.5 μs, observing our planet through a nadir-facing UV-transparent window in the Russian Zvezda module. The detector saves triggered transient phenomena with a sampling rate of 2.5 μs and 320 μs, as well as continuous acquisition at 40.96 μs scale. In this talk we discuss the detector response, and the first results obtained in the mission so far.
NUSES is a new space mission aiming to test innovative observational and
technological approaches related to the study of cosmic rays, high energy astrophysical neutrinos, Sun-Earth environment, Space weather
and magnetosphere-ionosphere-lithosphere coupling (MILC). The satellite
will host two payloads, named TERZINA and ZIRE’. ZIRE’ will perform
measurements of electrons, protons and light nuclei from few up to hundreds MeV, test new tools for the detection of cosmic MeV photons, and the monitoring of MILC signals. TERZINA, as a pathfinder of the POEMMA mission, will observe the
Cherenkov light produced by EAS generated by cosmic ray primaries at very high
energies and will monitor the light emissions from the Earth’s limb in the near UV and visible ranges at the ns time scale. In this way it will test the observational concept of detecting Earth skinmming astrophysical tau neutrinos. The scientific objectives and development status of the mission will be presented.
In recent times, there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of open science, i.e., of making scientific data public, to allow scientists other than those that took them to verify the results obtained, or carry out new analyses. As an example of such awareness, the European Commission nowadays requires beneficiaries of its funding not only to make publications available in open access but also to make data “as open as possible and as closed as necessary”. Such awareness has also made its way to the physicists of the large collaborations that operate ground-based experiments in astroparticle physics. Initiatives towards the release of public data have already been launched by the different collaborations: in this presentation, a few examples of such efforts will be outlined, touching on the different types of messengers, neutrinos, gravitational waves, gamma and cosmic rays. This will make it possible to show that the current open data releases are realized to varying degrees, as they depend on the different collaborations practices, on their policy (and that of their funding agencies), and on the characteristics of their experiment and their data. More coordinated initiatives among new astroparticle experiments, under construction or in the planning stage, are being implemented and these will also be outlined in the presentation.
Interactions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) accelerated in specific astrophysical environments have been shown to shape the energy production rate of nuclei differently from that of the secondary neutrons escaping from the confinement zone. Here, we aim at testing a generic scenario of in-source interactions through a phenomenological modeling of the flux and composition of UHECRs. We fit a model in which nucleons and nuclei follow different particle energy distributions to the all-particle energy spectrum, proton spectrum below the ankle energy and distributions of maximum shower depths above this energy, as inferred at the Pierre Auger Observatory. We obtain that the data can be reproduced using a spatial distribution of sources that follows the density of extragalactic matter on both local and large scales, providing hence a realistic set of constraints for the emission mechanisms in cosmic accelerators, for their energetics and for the abundances of elements at escape from their environments. While the quasi mono-elemental increase of the cosmic-ray mass number observed on Earth from ${\simeq}\: 2$\:EeV up to the highest energies calls for nuclei accelerated with a hard spectral index, the inferred flux of protons down to ${\simeq}\: 0.6$\:EeV is shown to require for this population a spectral index significantly softer than that generally obtained up to now. We demonstrate that modeling UHECR data across the ankle substantiate the conjecture of in-source interactions in a robust statistical framework, although pushing the mechanism to the extreme.
The recent Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) dipole anisotropy found by AUGER at EeVs energies, requires an explanation.
In analogy to the dipole Cosmic Black Body Radiation or other expected cosmic anisotropy one would like to understand the large UHECR dipole at EeV energy by a cosmic (bending, cosmic local clustering, Doppler shift) mechanism.
However there is not such a tuned process and-or a cosmic source.
We suggest a different reading key of present AUGER dipole data.
In the last decade several detectors have been placed in Near Earth Orbit to measure the cosmic rays fluxes. This large set of accurate measurement changed the landscape of the knowledge about charged radiation from space.
I will give a review of these measurements underling the new information and the challenges in these measurements.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, AMS-02, is a magnetic spectrometer detector operating on the International Space Station (ISS) since May the 19th, 2011. More than 200 billion events have been collected by the instrument in the first 11 years of data taking, providing detailed and novel insights on the composition and energy spectra of cosmic rays up to TeV energies. This contribution reviews the most recent AMS-02 measurements and the advances in the understanding of cosmic ray origin, acceleration and propagation physics.
Cosmic Rays (CR) inside the Heliosphere interact with the solar wind and with the interplanetary magnetic field, resulting in a temporal variation of the cosmic ray intensity near Earth for rigidities up to few tens of GV. This variation is known as Solar Modulation. Previous AMS results on proton and helium spectra showed how the two fluxes behave differently in time. To better understand these unexpected results, one could therefore study to the next most abundant species. In this contribution, the precision measurements of the monthly proton, helium, carbon and oxygen fluxes for the period from May 2011 to Nov 2019 with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station are presented. The detailed temporal variations of the fluxes are shown up to rigidities of 60 GV. The time dependence of the C/O, He/(C+O), p/(C+O), and p/He are also presented and their implication on the shape of the nuclei LIS is discussed.
When traveling inside the heliosphere, cosmic rays are influenced by magnetic turbulence and solar wind disturbances, which result in the so-called solar modulation effect. Understanding solar modulation is essential for studying the origin and the propagation processes of Galactic cosmic rays, as well as for establishing of predictive models of energetic radiation in space. In this talk, we present our efforts in the development of a comprensive model for the time- and energy-dependent solar modulation effect. In particular, we present our numerical description of the structure of the heliosphere, our simulations for the transport of charged particles and antiparticles in the interplanetary space. We discuss the role of the most recent data from space experiments such as AMS-02 or PAMELA in constraining the model parameters and revealing new important details of the solar modulation phenomenon.
The space-based DAMPE (DArk Matter Particle Explorer) particle detector has been taking data for more than 6 years since its successful launch in December 2015. Its main scientific goals include the indirect search of Dark Matter signatures in the cosmic lepton spectra, the study of Galactic Cosmic Rays up to energies of hundreds of TeV and high-energy gamma ray astronomy. This talk will focus on Galactic Cosmic Rays and the measurement of their spectra, fundamental to investigate the mechanisms of acceleration at their sources and propagation through the interstellar medium. The most recent results on Proton and Helium, which revealed new spectral features, will be highlighted. Ongoing analyses regarding the cosmic ray light component, medium and heavy mass nuclei will be discussed alongside studies on the so-called secondary cosmic rays.
CSES (China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite) is a sophisticated multi-channel space observatory. It was launched on the 2nd of February 2018, and it is now flying on a Sun-Synchronous orbit at an altitude of ~500 km.
The High Energy Particle Detector (HEPD-01) is one of the main contributions of the CSES-Limadou collaboration to the mission and it is optimized to detect charged particles: mostly 3-100 MeV electrons and 30-300 MeV protons, with good capabilities in the identification of heavier nuclei. The instrument is quite compact (40.36 cm x 53.00 cm x 38.15 cm) and it is composed of a tracking system, a trigger made by a segmented layer of plastic scintillator, a calorimeter made by a tower of plastic scintillators and an array of LYSO cubes and a veto system. With its large field of view ( $\pm$ 60$^\circ$ ) it is capable to collect sufficient statistics to provide new and competitive measurements concerning a quite rich scientific program: the study of the radiation present in the ionospheric environment, searching for transient phenomena correlated to seismic events, the monitoring of solar activity, the measurement of the modulation of the low energy cosmic ray spectrum and the study of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA).
In this contribution a synthetic description of the detector will be given. The main scientific results obtained with the HEPD-01 detector will be reported, focusing on its measurements of low energy cosmic rays and of the proton flux within the SAA, and on the results about time transients phenomena from the analysis of electrons and protons fluxes.
The High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD) is one of the payloads on board of CSES01, the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite dedicated to monitoring perturbations of electromagnetic fields, plasma and charged particle fluxes induced by natural sources and artificial emitters in the near-Earth space. It is a light and compact payload suitable for measuring electrons (3-100 MeV), protons (30-300 MeV), and light nuclei (up to a few hundreds of MeV) with a high energy resolution and a wide angular acceptance. It has been launched in February 2018 on a Low-Earth Orbit and an altitude of about 507 km with a foreseen mission lifetime of over 5 years. It is providing crucial new insight in the physical dynamics of the radiation belts in the Earth’s magnetosphere. In this work, a preliminary analysis on helium spectra with energy > 60 MeV is presented.
The General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) is specifically designed to
identify low-energy (<0.25 GeV/n) cosmic antinuclei, in particular antideuterons,
as a signature of dark matter annihilation or decay. This low energy channel is very
promising since beyond-the-Standard Model physics predicts a signal from dark matter that is several orders of magnitude higher than the antideuteron flux
produced by cosmic rays during their propagation through the Galaxy. Using a novel detection approach that relies on exotic atom formation and decay, GAPS will provide
unprecedented sensitivity to cosmic antideuterons, a high-statistics
antiproton spectrum in an unexplored energy range, and leading sensitivity to
cosmic antihelium. The GAPS instrument consists of a large-area scintillator time-of-flight, ten planes of silicon detectors with dedicated ASIC readout, and a novel
oscillating heat pipe cooling approach. GAPS is currently under integration and preparing for the first Antarctic balloon flight while two follow-up flights are planned.
This talk will review the current progress of construction and the overall status of the
instrument, discuss the latest sensitivity estimates and present the path forward to the first
flight.
The Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON) aims to connect the world’s leading high-energy and multimessenger observatories. AMON’s objective are to evoke the discovery of new multimessenger phenomena, exploit these phenomena as tools for fundamental physics and astrophysics, and explore archival datasets in search of multimessenger activity. Present projects include distributing low-latency multimessenger alerts from the Neutrino-Electromagnetic (NuEM) channel, and triggering real-time preservation and analysis of data from NASA's Swift satellite based on LIGO+Virgo+Kagra gravitational-wave alerts. Looking ahead, AMON will continue providing useful real-time analyses of a wide variety of high-energy and multimessenger data streams, while upgrading its systems to cloud-based and SCiMMA-standard cyberinfrastructure, and strengthening its ties with the theoretical and time domain astrophysics communities.
The Pierre Auger Observatory is not only the world's largest cosmic-ray observatory, but also an efficient detector of cosmic particles other than nuclei. Using its enormous exposure, the Observatory is a competitive player in searches for ultra-high energy neutrinos, photons, and even particles that could emerge from theories beyond the standard model of particle physics. We present our recent results of such searches, targeting both the diffuse fluxes of particles and specific transient events. Special attention is given to the potential of the Observatory to support or constrain the observations of the ANITA experiment interpreted as upward-going air showers. The correlation of arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array with high-energy neutrinos detected by IceCube and ANTARES experiments is also discussed.
Last year the Tibet ASgamma experiment reported the observation of a diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Galactic plane with energy up to the PeV. This finding seems to be confirmed by LHAASO preliminary results. Both measurements provide the first evidence of a diffuse gamma-ray emission throughout the Galaxy up to such high energies.
These results have relevant implications for neutrino astronomy since they strengthen the expectation that a neutrino diffuse emission from the Galactic plane could soon be discovered by IceCube and KM3NeT.
To explore this possibility we use physically motivated numerical models which reproduce the observed gamma-ray diffuse emission angular distribution and spectral energy distribution from few GeV up to the PeV under the hypothesis that is mostly originated by the cosmic ray population of the Galaxy.
We will discuss the possible detectability of the associated neutrino emission and the valuable implications it may have for understanding the origin and propagation of cosmic rays.
Partially based on: https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.15759
Starburst galaxies (SBGs) and more in general starforming galaxies represent a class of galaxies with a high star formation rate (up to 100 Mo/year). Despite their low luminosity, they can be considered as guaranteed “factories” of high energy neutrinos, being “reservoirs” of accelerated cosmic rays and hosting a high density target gas in the central region. The estimation of their point-like and diffuse contributions to the neutrino astrophysical flux measured by IceCube can be crucial to describe the diffuse neutrino spectral features as well as the peculiar point-like excess like NGC1068. To this aim we used the most updated gamma-ray catalog of this class of objects to perform a multimessenger study and describe their gamma-ray emission through a calorimetric scenario.
A whole sky analysis was performed through a blending of the measured spectral indexes and obtained a multi-component description of extragalactic background light (EGB), high energy starting events (HESE) and high-energy cascade IceCube data. Remarkably, we found that, differently from recent prototype scenarios, the spectral index blending allows starburst galaxies to account for up to 40% of the HESE events at 95.4% CL and favors a maximal energy of the accelerated cosmic rays at tens of PeV. The same calorimetric approach has been applied also to the known
SBGs within 100 Mpc, considering, where possible, a source-by-source description of the star formation rate obtained from IR and UV observations. On this regard we showed how Future CTA measurements will be crucial to link the observed gamma-ray fluxes from resolved SBGs with their star-forming activity as well as to disentangle the cosmic-ray transport inside the core of these galaxies. The expected neutrino emission, related to this scenario, are then compared with what can be expected from the Global Neutrino Network.
We present the search for gravitational waves associated with Gamma Ray
Bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second
part of the third observing run (O3b) of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo,
from 2019 November 1 to 2020 March 27. This search is carried out with two
different methods, a modeled search targeting compact binary mergers with
at least one neutron star, which is used for 17 short GRBs, and a search
for generic transients, used for all the 86 GRBs. We find no statistically
significant gravitational wave signal associated with any of these GRBs.
Considering several source types and signal morphologies, we set lower
bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB.
In this talk, I will present the latest results by the LIGO-Virgo-Kagra
Collaboration for the targeted search for continuous gravitational waves
(GWs) from 236 pulsars. I will also present the first results using the
5n-vector method on the same set of pulsars. Using data from the third
observing run of LIGO and Virgo (O3) combined with data from the second
observing run (O2), no evidence of GWs was found. We set detection upper limits on the GW amplitude and on the pulsar ellipticity at 95% confidence level. 23 of the
analyzed pulsars have strain amplitudes that are lower than the limits
calculated from their electromagnetically measured spin-down rates.
The gravitational wave detector Advanced Virgo+ is currently in the commissioning phase in view of the fourth Observing Run (O4).
The major upgrades with respect to the Advanced Virgo configuration is the implementation of an additional recycling cavity, the Signal Recycling cavity at the output of the interferometer (SRC), to broad the sensitivity band and the Frequency Dependent Squeezing (FDS) to reduce quantum noise at all frequencies.
The main difference of the Advanced Virgo + detector with respect to the LIGO detectors is the presence of marginally stable recycling cavities, with respect to the stable recycling cavities present in the LIGO detectors, which increases the difficulties in controlling the interferometer in presence of defects (both thermal and cold defects).
This work will focus on the interferometer commissioning, highlighting the control challenges to maintain the detector in the working point which maximizes the sensitivity and the duty cycle for scientific data taking.
One of the fundamental noise in gravitational waves detectors is the so called Quantum Noise, that is related to the intrinsic quantum nature of the laser used to interrogate the GW interferometers, i.e. to the uncertainty on amplitude and phase of the coherent state of light that couples with the vacuum fluctuations. Due to the frequency dependent opto-mechanical response of the GW detectors, the amplitude and phase fluctuations is weighted in different way in the detectors frequency band, leading to the so called Radiation Pression Noise (RPN) at low frequency and to the so called Shot Noise (SN) at high frequency, respectively. By injecting frequency independent squeezed (FIS) vacuum light into the dark port of the GW interferometer a significant reduction of the SN can be and has been observed during the last observations runs, both for Advance Virgo and the two LIGO detectors. Nevertheless the big effort done to reduce in parallel one of the most sensitivity limiting noise in the low frequency region, the technical noise, has revealed the main draw back of the FIS injection: the increasing of the RPN at low frequency.
Moreover, even without FIS injection, the improvement of the low frequency sensitivity for the new upgraded detectors, in any case leads to the needed of the quantum noise mitigation in the whole detectors band. For this reason FIS injection must be replaced with frequency dependent squeezed vacuum (FDS). For the next observation runs, both Virgo and LIGO collaboration planned FDS injection. The technique to produce it is based on the phase sensitive response of a filter cavity that allows the squeezing ellipse rotation in the detectors frequency band.
Here we will present the commissioning status of the Quantum Noise Reduction system for the FDS injection into AdV+.
While completing the commissioning phase to prepare the Virgo interferometer for the next joint Observation Run (O4), the Virgo collaboration is also finalizing the design of the next upgrades to the detector to be employed in the following Observation Run (O5). The major upgrade will concern decreasing the thermal noise limit, which will imply using very large test masses and increased laser beam size. But this will not be the only upgrade to be implemented in the break between the O4 and O5 observation runs to increase the Virgo detector strain sensitivity.
The talk will cover the challenges linked to this upgrade and implications on the detector's reach and observational potential, and will give some glimpses on the potential longer term perspectives of the Virgo inteferometer.
The Einstein Telescope (ET) is a planned European 3rd Generation Gravitational Wave (GW) Observatory, a new research infrastructure designed to observe the entire Universe using gravitational waves. ET will be a multi-interferometer observatory aiming to increase a factor of ten the present detector sensitivity and to explore a universe volume one thousand bigger. We will give an overview of the project, describe the main scientific goals and the technological challenges that must be overcome to reach the aspected sensitivity.
the bus will leave at 3:00 pm in front of Hotel S. Lucia (via Partenope 46, 250 m from the Conference Center). Visit to Pompei Ruins and social dinner. The bus will be back at Hotel S. Lucia at 11 pm.
Recent instruments deployed in space or on stratospheric balloons are targeted at the study of a variety of energetic cosmic particles, including protons and nuclei, electrons, antimatter particles, secondary nuclei (including isotopes), ultraheavy nuclei, all complementing gamma-ray studies. Thus a new wealth of data is providing fresh insights on high-energy phenomena in the Galaxy. The instruments are large and deployed for long exposures, providing for an energy reach that permits direct cross-comparisons with ground-based measurements. We briefly review the state of the field, focusing on present and near future efforts.
HERD (High Energy Radiation Detector) is a future experiment for space-based detection of cosmic rays and gamma ray astronomy onboard the Chinese Space Station. Its most innovative feature will be the events collection from 5 sides, hence having a one order of magnitude jump in acceptance with respect to current largest calorimetric experiments. This will make it possible to investigate cosmic rays spectra for each species up to the so-called knee region at PeV energies. The all-electron spectrum will also be measured up to about 10TeV (depending on the actual flux) and the gamma sky will be studied with a large effective area from a few hundreds MeV up to few TeV, also allowing the search for possible signatures from dark matter particles in our galaxy.
Hybrid pixel detectors (HPD) of Timepix [1,2] technology have become increasingly interesting for space applications. While up to date, common space radiation monitors rely on silicon diodes, achieving particle (mainly electron and proton) separation by pulse-height analysis, detector stacking, shielding or electron removal by a magnetic field, the key advantage of HPDs is that, in addition to the energy deposition measurement, particle signatures in the sensor are seen as tracks with a rich set of features. These track characteristics can be exploited for identification of particle type, energy, and its trajectory. Determining these pieces of information on a single layer bypasses the need for sensor stacking or complex shielding geometries, so that HPD based space radiation devices provide science-class data with a large field of view at an order of magnitude lower weight and approximately half of the power consumption compared with commonly used space radiation monitors. The first Timepix (256 x 256 pixels, 55 µm pitch) used in open space is SATRAM (Space Application of Timepix Radiation Monitor), attached to the Proba-V satellite launched to low earth orbit (LEO, 820 km, sun-synchronous) in 2013. Up to now, 9 years after its launch, it provides data for mapping out the fluxes of electrons and protons trapped in the Van-Allen radiation belts [3]. Figure 1 shows the in-orbit map of the ionizing dose rate and illustrates the different radiation fields in polar horn region (Fig. 1b), the South Atlantic Anomaly (Fig. 1c) and in a region shielded by Earth’s magnetic field (Fig. 1d) as measured with SATRAM. Noiseless detection of individual particles allows to detect even rare signatures of highly ionizing events. In the present contribution, we will discuss different data analysis methodology, relying on track feature analysis, novel machine learning approaches (e.g. [5]) and using statistical interpolation. Based on the success of SATRAM, advanced and miniaturized space radiation monitors based on Timepix3 [2] and Timepix2 [4] technology have been developed for the European Space Agency (ESA). These will be flown on the GOMX-5 mission (launch in 2023) and used within the European Space Radiation Array. Large area Timepix3 detectors (512 x 512 pixels, 55 µm pitch) were developed for the demonstrator of the penetrating particle analyzer [5] (mini.PAN), a compact magnetic spectrometer (MS) designed to measure the properties of cosmic rays in the 100MeV/n - 20GeV/n energy range in deep space with unprecedented accuracy, thus providing novel results to investigate the mechanisms of origin, acceleration and propagation of galactic cosmic rays and of solar energetic particles, and producing unique information for solar system exploration missions. Mini.PAN employs position-sensitive (pixel and strip) detectors and (fast) scintillators to infer the particle type and velocity of GeV particles (and antiparticles) passing through the instrument’s magnetic field by measuring their bending angles, charge deposition and time-of-flight. We will describe the mini.PAN development status, challenges imposed by the space environment, and outline how a MS purely relying on latest generation hybrid pixel detectors could simply instrument design, reduce the PAN mass budget and provide high rate capabilities.
References:
[1] X. Llopart et al., NIM A 581 (2007), pp. 485-494.
[2] T. Poikela et al., JINST 9 (2014) C05013.
[3] St. Gohl et al., Advances in Space Research 63 (2019), Issue 1, pp. 1646-1660.
[4] W. Wong et al., Rad. Meas. 131 (2021), 106230.
[5] M. Ruffenach et al., in IEEE TNS 68 (2021), Issue 8, 1746-1753.
[6] X. Wu et al., Advances in Space Research, 63 (2019), Issue 8, pp 2672-2682.
The knee feature in the cosmic ray energy spectrum has experienced investigations by many experiments, and widely considered as a transition region from galactic to extra-galactic sources. However, a clear dependence on the direction of cosmic ray and the hadronic interaction model is observed. Therefore, a solid understanding of the angular distribution at these energies is requested to have a precise estimation of the muon flux and cosmic ray composition.
In this work, a simulation study of the zenith angle dependence of cosmic ray muons at sea level will be presented.
The Outreach Cosmic Ray Activities (OCRA) was created in 2018 within the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) to offer a platform for all outreach activities focusing on cosmic rays within the institute. OCRA now counts 22 of the institute’s divisions all over Italy as members. The project offers activities both for students and teachers. The one activity common to all local groups is the participation in the yearly International Cosmic Day, organized by DESY, inviting high school students to carry out hands-on measurements of the cosmic ray flux and learn about the related physics background. Two students from each division are then selected to participate in the annual OCRA science camp, a three-day full immersion into the life of a physicist.
For both teachers and students, the OCRA website https://web.infn.it/OCRA/, offers a series of online laboratories designed both to be used by students individually but also to be offered in the classroom by teachers. A section dedicated to teachers provides ample material to help bring these laboratories to the classroom. The online materials were presented in a course for teachers in spring 2021.
In addition to the national efforts, there are also local initiatives of the OCRA member groups: workshops and secondments, science competitions and the development of new detectors for outreach activities offer a multitude of possibilities for students to engage with our researchers and to explore the world of cosmic rays.
This talk will give an overview on all activities offered by OCRA with a particular focus on the 2022 science camp.
Since 2016 ‘’ A scuola di Astroparticelle’’ is an outreach program conceived
by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN – Napoli Unit) and, in the latest edition-the fifth, organized in collaboration with the Physics Department “Ettore Pancini” of the Federico II University in Napoli, CNR-SPIN, CNR-ISASI, CNR-INO Institutes and INAF astronomical observatory of Capodimonte to offer the possibility to the students of the High Secondary Schools to discovery the modern physics. In 2018 the program became part of the national outreach project of INFN, OCRA - Outreach Cosmic Ray Activities – project with the aim of collecting into a common framework the numerous outreach activities in cosmic-ray field carried out at the local level.
In the last years, starting from 2018/2019 edition, the activities are proposed by the schools as part of the Italian Educational Progra, PCTO – “Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e per l'Orientamento” in a way that students have the possibilities to touch the experience of researcher work.
Topics covered range from open questions about the origins, structure, and evolution of the universe to environmental radioactivity, optics, nanotechnology, nuclear physics to technical aspects related to the development of particle detectors as well as gender in science.In particular the program offers projects related to the main experiments in cosmic ray, astroparticles physics and gravitational waves. Some activities are more theoretical, addressed to understand the science case of these experiments; other ones are most focused on experimental aspects, like the detection and the detectors developments. It is organized over several months during the school year to prepare a final event in which each school presents its work to the others with posters and presentations. A jury of experts at the end assign a prize to the best project, with the attention to gratify all the other participants.
This fifth edition (2021-2022) involved 14 schools in the Campania region with more than 300 students.
As an example here we present in detail the project related to the gravitational waves observation.
We present the development of an International Masterclass, directed towards high-school students, using the public data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The challenge for each group of students is to analyze a dataset of ultra-high energy cosmic ray events with the aim of reconstructing their energies and arrival directions. Following the application of selection criteria, all the selected events are combined in a smoothed, exposure-corrected sky map with the arrival directions. A general discussion of the map takes place to allow for conclusions about the cosmic origin of these particles. Throughout the activity, the students work with an interactive software interface based on the unity framework and on the open-data tools provided by the Pierre Auger Collaboration. We will report on the first test edition of the activity that took place in Portugal and Italy, as well as on plans for including this activity as part of the IPPOG Masterclasses programme.
The Mathematical High School (MHS) Project is a research project involving 160 high schools and 25 Italian universities in which experimental research paths are deepened to explore mathematics as a universal language and as a link between the various areas of both humanistic and scientific knowledge. These activities are developed with the collaboration of internationally recognized research institutions. In particular, in the courses of the schools that collaborate with the MHS research group of the Mathematics Department of the University of Salerno, thanks to the collaboration with INFN (National Institute of Nuclear Physics) of Naples, students are offered laboratory activities of data analysis in the "cosmic ray path". Students, guided by the researchers, use the CRC (Cosmic Rays Cube), a portable muon detector to carry out an experimental activity, from the data taking to the analysis. They study what cosmic rays are, where they come from and, in particular, the characteristics of comic-ray muons produced in the Earth atmosphere. Mathematics becomes the language with which the data collected by the detector are interpreted to reconstruct the muon traces, their flux and their direction. Using dedicated software and calculation software, students experience the activity of the researchers. Working in team they deal with high-profile scientific issues usually not developed in the curricular educational paths.
High school students and teachers perform Domenico Pacini's experiment in a modern key on the origin of the natural ionizing radiation that surrounds us. With the collaboration of INFN researchers and the University, the schools prepared for about 2 months for this event, collecting a large amount of data in the air and analyzing them. Then they went to a lake where they performed the measurements at different depth in water. This activity is one of the many organized by the INFN-OCRA outreach activities.
Blazars are active galactic nuclei whose ultra-relativistic jets is co-aligned with the observer direction. They emit throughout the whole e.m. spectrum, from radio to VHE gamma rays. Not all blazars are discovered. In this work, we propose a catalog of new candidates based on association of HE gamma ray emission and radio, X-ray an optical signatures. The relevance of this work is that it was performed by 4 high school students from the Liceo Ugo Morin in Venice using the open-source platform Open Universe in collaboration with University of Padova. The framework of the activity is the Italian MIUR PCTO programme. The success of this citizen-science experience and results are hereafter reported and discussed.
This project was proposed for the first time during the European Researchers’ Night in
November 2020 in Catania. The idea, taken from the famous RAI3 program “Per un pugno di
libri”, was adapted to consider books of scientific divulgation and, in that occasion, a
competition was organized between two local high schools.
After the edition in Catania, the project in 2021-2022 has been extended and now it involves
high schools from Cagliari, Catania, Firenze, and Napoli. The local organizers choose and
propose to students a scientific book on which several questions and games are devised, and
after a local selection, competitions among schools of the different cities are organized, either
online or in presence. In particular, the book chosen by the Napoli group for the local
competition was “L’Enigma dei Raggi cosmici” by Alessandro De Angelis, ed. Springer.
Given the enthusiastic and positive results by the teachers and the students, we’re going to
organize the second edition of the project which will start in November 2022.