High energy cosmic ray detections with the standalone radio trigger system at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Radio observations of cosmic ray air showers can characterize cosmic ray mass composition, via precise Xmax measurements, at the energies of the likely shift from Galactic to extragalactic sources. Advantages over other methods include lower cost instrumentation and the ability to observe in a range of weather conditions. However, detecting cosmic rays via their radio emission alone amid radio frequency interference (RFI), without reference to an alternate particle detector, is a significant challenge. The Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA) cosmic ray detection system uses a multistage RFI rejection process including FPGA and CPU processing to address this challenge and operate in the presence of RFI. The OVRO-LWA is a multi-use array of 352 dual-polarization dipole antennas operating at ~30—80 MHz. The array recently completed a major upgrade, including the addition of the cosmic ray detection system, which operates simultaneously with the other radio astronomy observing modes. Detections of cosmic ray candidates began in 2024. The dense antenna spacing of the OVRO-LWA offers the opportunity for testing and developing new Xmax reconstruction techniques, such as interferometric reconstruction. This presentation will describe the cosmic ray detection system, present the sample of cosmic ray candidates, and discuss plans for the future.
DOI: 10.22323/1.501.0359
Authors: Kathryn Plant, Andrew Romero-Wolf, Gregg Hallinan, Marin Anderson, Judd Bowman, Ruby Byrne, Morgan Catha, Bin Chen, Xingyao Chen, Sherry Chhabra, Larry D’Addario, Ivey Davis, Jayce Dowell, Katherine Elder, Dale Gary, Charlie Harnach, Greg Hellbourg, Jack Hickish, Rick Hobbs, David Hodge, Mark Hodges, Yuping Huang, Andrea Isella, Daniel C. Jacobs, Ghislain Kemby, John T. Klinefelter, Matthew Kolopanis, Nikita Kosogorov, James Lamb, Casey Law, Nivedita Mahesh, Surajit Mondal, Brian O’Donnell, Corey Posner, Travis Powell, Vinand Prayag, Andres Rizo, Jun Shi, Greg B. Taylor, Jordan Trim, Mike Virgin, Akshatha Vydula, Sandy Weinreb, Scott White, David Woody, Sijie Yu, Thomas Zentmeyer, Peijin Zhang
Institutions: California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4414451585
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