PoS - Proceedings of Science
Volume 395 - 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2021) - CRI - Cosmic Ray Indirect
Cross-calibrating the energy scales of cosmic-ray experiments using a portable radio array
K. Mulrey*, S. Buitink, A. Corstanje, K.D. de Vries, H. Falcke, B.M. Hare, J.R. Hörandel, T. Huege, G.K. Krampah, P. Mitra, A. Nelles, H. Pandya, J.P. Rachen, E. Santiago, O. Scholten, R. Stanley, S. ter Veen, S. Thoudam, T.N.G. Trinh and T. Winchen
Full text: pdf
Pre-published on: July 07, 2021
Published on: March 18, 2022
Abstract
Different experiments use different techniques to detect and reconstruct cosmic-ray events, yielding
different energy scales. Having a method to compare the energy scales of different experiments
with minimal uncertainty is necessary in order to make meaningful comparisons of their spectra
and composition measurements, which are used to create global models of cosmic-ray sources,
acceleration and propagation. Comparing energy scales has proven to be difficult, given that
uncertainties on energy measurements depend on the location, technique and equipment used.
In this contribution we introduce a new radio-based technique which will be used to build a
universal cosmic-ray energy scale. Radio detection provides a measure of the radiation energy in
air showers, which scales quadratically with the electromagnetic energy. Once the local magnetic
field strength is taken into account, radiation energy can be directly compared at different locations. A portable array of antennas will be built and deployed at various experiments, measuring radiation energy in conjunction with the host experiments’ traditional air shower measurements. The energy measured at each location can then be directly compared via the contemporaneous radiation energy measurements. Using radiation energy to compare the energy scales eliminates uncertainties due to measurements being made at different locations, and using the same array at each site
eliminates the uncertainties associated with the equipment and calibration. This will allow for a cross-calibration of the energy scales of different experiments with minimal uncertainty. Here we present the technique and report on the status of a prototype array that began taking data in
January 2021.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/1.395.0414
How to cite

Metadata are provided both in "article" format (very similar to INSPIRE) as this helps creating very compact bibliographies which can be beneficial to authors and readers, and in "proceeding" format which is more detailed and complete.

Open Access
Creative Commons LicenseCopyright owned by the author(s) under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.