Pierre Auger Observatory Central Laser Facility Upgrade

皮埃尔俄歇天文台中央激光设施升级

• 批准号: 1102768
• 负责人: Lawrence Wiencke
• 金额: $ 3.26万
• 依托单位: Colorado School of Mines
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-05-01 至 2012-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1102768&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Pierre; Auger; Observatory; Central; Laser

This award will assist in funding an upgrade to the Central Laser "test beam" Facility (CLF) located near the center of the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO). The PAO uses the atmosphere as a giant calorimeter to measure the highest energy particles known to exist. At these extreme energies (1-100 EeV; 1 EeV = 10^18 eV; 1 eV is the energy an electron or proton gains when it is accelerated by a voltage of one Volt), particle test beams, traditionally used to characterize accelerator based detectors, simply do not exist. However, light scattered out of a pulsed Ultra-Violet (UV) laser beam directed into the atmosphere will generate tracks that can be recorded by the same fluorescence detectors that record tracks from extensive air showers. There is an approximate effective optical equivalence between a 5 milliJoule UV laser track and a 100 EeV air shower. The proposed CLF upgrade will add a Raman LIDAR receiver and a robotic photometric calibration system, and make related improvements. It will target three specific areas:1. Use the "super test beam" to crosscheck the end-to-end photometric calibration of the fluorescence detector which sets the energy scale for the observatory. 2. Within a few minutes of the detection of air-showers of particular interest, the Raman receiver will make an independent precision measurement of the aerosol optical depth profile and water vapor profile. Events of interest include very high energy candidates detected in hybrid mode, air showers from the region near the radio galaxy Centaurus A, and exotic candidates with shower profiles that may not fit the standard shape. Aerosol optical depth is the largest time varying correction applied to air shower reconstruction. 3. Systematically compare the aerosol optical depth profiles measured by the Raman LIDAR receiver and by the side-scatter method currently used to fill the observatory's aerosol profile database. This comparison is especially important to the elongation rate analysis of hybrid data that suggests the particle composition may transition to heavier primaries above 10 EeV.CSM undergraduates are naturally involved in the research, as they are required to complete a senior design project as part of their curriculum. Raman LIDAR is a standard aerosol profile measurement technique that will enhance the usefulness of the atmospheric data base collected by non-traditional methods. This will enable more direct comparisons with other data sets in the atmospheric science community.

该奖项将资助升级位于皮埃尔俄歇天文台（PAO）中心附近的中央激光“测试光束”设施（CLF）。PAO利用大气作为一个巨大的热量计来测量已知存在的最高能量粒子。在这些极端能量下（1-100 EeV; 1 EeV = 10^18 eV; 1 eV是电子或质子在被一伏电压加速时获得的能量），传统上用于表征基于加速器的探测器的粒子测试束根本不存在。然而，从脉冲紫外线（UV）激光束散射到大气中的光将产生轨迹，这些轨迹可以由记录广泛空气簇射轨迹的相同荧光探测器记录。在5毫焦耳紫外激光跟踪和100 EeV空气簇射之间存在近似的有效光学等效性。拟议的CLF升级将增加一个拉曼激光雷达接收器和一个机器人光度校准系统，并进行相关的改进。它将针对三个具体领域：1。使用“超级测试光束”交叉检查荧光探测器的端到端光度校准，该校准为天文台设置能量标度。2.在探测到特别感兴趣的空气簇射后的几分钟内，拉曼接收器将对气溶胶光学深度剖面和水蒸气剖面进行独立的精确测量。感兴趣的事件包括在混合模式中检测到的非常高的能量候选者，来自射电星系半人马座A附近区域的空气簇射，以及具有可能不符合标准形状的簇射轮廓的外来候选者。气溶胶光学厚度是重建大气簇射的最大时变校正量。3.系统地比较拉曼激光雷达接收器和目前用于填补观测站气溶胶剖面数据库的侧向散射法测量的气溶胶光学深度剖面。这种比较是特别重要的混合动力数据，表明粒子组合物的延伸率分析可能会过渡到较重的初级以上10 EeV。CSM本科生自然参与研究，因为他们需要完成一个高级设计项目作为他们的课程的一部分。拉曼激光雷达是一种标准的气溶胶剖面测量技术，它将提高通过非传统方法收集的大气数据库的有用性。这将有助于与大气科学界的其他数据集进行更直接的比较。