Research in Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Ray Physics

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This award will fund the group to study ultrahigh energy cosmic rays with the High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) and Telescope Array collaborations. The study of cosmic rays has intellectual impact in several areas of physics and astrophysics. Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays are the highest energy particles in the universe, and are accelerated in the most violent astronomical objects. The HiRes collaboration has made several important measurements, with this group playing an important part. The Telescope Array is the largest cosmic ray experiment in the northern hemisphere. It is a hybrid experiment and has been collecting data since early 2008. The group is involved in the analysis of both surface detector (SD) and fluorescence detector (FD) data. They lead the collaboration in the SD work, developing a new method of SD analysis, and have calculated the spectrum of cosmic rays from the SD. Their FD analysis centers on the two fluorescence detectors located in the southern portion of the experiment. They are making the first steps in FD analysis: monocular reconstruction, followed by hybrid reconstruction. The broader impacts of the research include the education of students and postdocs and the group will join the Aspire Outreach activity.