Air shower measurements with LOFAR
Abstract
Air showers from cosmic rays emit short, intense radio pulses. The Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is a new radio telescope, that is being built in the Netherlands and Europe. Designed primarily as a radio interferometer, the core of LOFAR will have a high density of radio antennas, which will be extremely well calibrated. This makes LOFAR a unique tool for the study of the radio properties of single air showers. Triggering on the radio emission from air showers means detecting a short radio pulse and discriminating real events from radio interference. At LOFAR we plan to search for pulses in the digital data stream—either from single antennas or from already beam-formed data—and calculate several parameters characterizing the pulse shape to pick out real events in a second stage. In addition, we will have a small scintillator array to test and confirm the performance of the radio only trigger.
- Publication:
-
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A
- Pub Date:
- June 2009
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.nima.2009.03.027
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0903.2398
- Bibcode:
- 2009NIMPA.604S..20H
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- Proceedings of the ARENA 2008 workshop, to be published in NIM A