Price Prize Lecture = CCAPP Seminar Tuesday

[John Beacom]

Hi all,

The CCAPP seminar Tuesday (tomorrow) is the second of two 2012 Price Prize Lectures.  It will be at the usual time (12:30pm) and place (4138 PRB).

Our second 2012 winner is Chris Williams (http://kicp.uchicago.edu/people/profile/christopher_williams.html), a graduate student from the University of Chicago (and a 2008 undergraduate alumnus of OSU Physics and Astronomy!).

He is an experimentalist; he is working on new techniques to detect the highest-energy particles in the universe, seeking clues to their unknown origins.  His abstract follows.

Chris will be visiting all week, and is sitting in the CCAPP area in PRB.  HIs scientific host is Amy Connolly.

For more information on the Price Prize, see http://www.ccapp.osu.edu/priceprize.html.

Best regards,
John



Microwave Detection of Cosmic Ray Air Showers

10/2/12
Christopher Williams (U. of Chicago)

I will present the design and implementation of the Microwave Detection of Air Showers (MIDAS) experiment, a pathfinder for detection of Extensive Air Showers (EAS) induced by Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs). The MIDAS experiment uses a multi-pixel imaging telescope instrumented with commercially sourced GHz receivers and custom fast-detection electronics to search for EAS. The microwave detection technique is analogous to the already successful fluorescence technique, but with nearly 100% duty cycle. If successful, the microwave technique will provide an attractive method for instrumenting the extremely large areas required by future UHECR observatories. The first science phase of the MIDAS experiment gathered 61 days of livetime data operating on the University of Chicago campus. I will present the current limits on EAS microwave emission from this data set. The second science phase is underway with installation of the MIDAS detector at the Pierre Auger Observatory in Malargue, Argentina. Operating in coincidence with the Auger surface detector will greatly increase the sensitivity of the MIDAS experiment.


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John Beacom
Professor and Director of CCAPP (http://ccapp.osu.edu)
Department of Physics and Department of Astronomy
Ohio State University
email: beacom.7 at osu.edu, phone: (614) 247 - 8102
Dept. of Physics, OSU, 191 W. Woodruff Ave., Columbus, OH 43210
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