South Pole Air Shower Experiment for Gamma Ray Astronomy at Ultra-High Energy

超高能量伽马射线天文学南极空气簇射实验

• 批准号: 9221665
• 负责人: Thomas Gaisser
• 金额: $ 31.24万
• 依托单位: Bartol Research Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing grant
• 财政年份: 1993
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1993-03-01 至 1995-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9221665&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: South; Pole; Air; Shower; Experiment

The South Pole Air Shower Experiment (SPASE) is a large (approximately 100 meter square) array of scintillation detectors which measures very energetic particles produced by interactions of cosmic ray with the Earth's atmosphere. Spase was first installed at South Pole in late 1987 and has operated almost continuously since then with several improvements. The experiment is intended to search for sources of gamma rays with the expectation that such sources would also be the long sought sources of charged cosmic rays. In the first 5 years of operation SPASE has not found an unambiguous constant source, though there is a candidate. There are also candidate pulsed sources which may have been detected. These results are consistent with all similar experiment in the Southern Hemisphere. It is planned to operate SPASE in conjunction with the new detectors which are being installed as part of the AMANDA (Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array). These new detectors will provide additional information on the muon content of the air showers and therefore reduce the charged cosmic ray background and increase the likelihood of detection of gamma rays.

南极空气簇射实验(SPASE)是一个大型(约100平方米)的闪烁探测器阵列，它测量宇宙射线与地球大气相互作用产生的非常高能量的粒子。Spase于1987年底首次安装在南极，此后几乎一直在运行，并进行了几次改进。这项实验的目的是寻找伽马射线源，期望这样的源也是长期以来一直在寻找的带电宇宙射线源。在运营的头5年里，Spase没有找到一个明确的恒定来源，尽管有一个候选者。也有可能已经检测到的候选脉冲源。这些结果与南半球的所有类似实验都是一致的。计划与作为阿曼达(南极Muon和中微子探测器阵列)一部分安装的新探测器一起运行SPASE。这些新的探测器将提供有关空气簇射中的Muon含量的额外信息，从而减少带电的宇宙线背景，并增加探测到伽马射线的可能性。