Faculty and Student Teams Program

Project Descriptions

Brookhaven National Laboratory
Physics Department

Requesting applications from science or engineering faculty members at institutions serving students underrepresented in science, engineering, mathematics and technology, to work on the detection of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays using radio waves.

Project Description

Ultra High Energy (UHE) cosmic rays are rare events, 1 event per km² per year. Their nature and origin are not known. Current ground based experiments allow for the detection of few events per year at energies near to 10²⁰ eV.  It is well known that dense ionization is created in the upper atmosphere, e.g. by meteorites, and bounce radio waves from distant radio and TV stations. This detection technique is known as Radio Meteor Scatter and it is widely used by professionals and amateurs. Ionization created by UHE cosmic rays produces similar electron densities as meteors and in principle it should be possible to detect them using the same technique. The synchronization of events at distant sites will be done via GPS timing. Radio detection offers an advantage over conventional detection systems due to its long-range detection area of 1000 km² or more. An experiment to test the detection technique is now under development. The experiment seeks the simultaneous detection of radio echoes from commercial broadcast TV stations with signals from compact shower arrays. Due to the dimensions of the shower, approximately 30 km long and 4km in radius, the compact shower arrays will be detected in local high schools that will help in the data collection. We expect that applicants will participate in all phases of the project – from building detectors for compact shower arrays, acquiring radio events, and analyzing the acquired data. We would also like to have participants in the program to setup a detection system, a compact shower array detector and/or radio station at their institution to continue their participation in the research program.

Applicants Responsibilities and Relationship to Project

Applicants will receive support under the Department of Energy Faculty Student Team Research Program (FaST) to work collaboratively with the project research team at BNL for up to 10 weeks during the year starting in June of 2006, Summer and academic year visits to BNL will be scheduled by mutual agreement between the Physics Department and the successful applicant. Ideally faculty will work at BNL on the project for 10 weeks during the summer in the first year. Faculty will be expected to identify students from their campus to participate in the FaST program offered by the Department of Energy at BNL. Ideally Faculty will provide some mentorship and/or advising support to students during the summer research activities. It is expected that the Faculty member will become an integral part of the research team working on this project and will support the project through the academic year on her or his campus.

Qualifications of Ideal Candidate

Support and Financial Commitments

See Financial Information.

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