Justin Bray (University of Manchester)

Justin Bray and Nipanjana Patra colloquium

Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

Radio detection of high energy cosmic rays. High-energy cosmic rays, when they interact in a medium such as the
terrestrial atmosphere or the lunar regolith, produce a cascade of
particles which emits a radio pulse. By detecting these pulses, it is
possible to detect and study the cosmic rays that produced them. After
a long period of development, the first radio detection of cosmic rays
was in 1965, this technique has now reached the point where radio
detection of atmospheric cosmic rays is slightly more precise than other
techniques, allowing detailed studies of cosmic-ray composition and
high-energy particle physics; and the first detection of a lunar
cosmic-ray interaction is a practical possibility, with scope for
extending the upper bound of the observed cosmic-ray spectrum and
finding the direction of a source of these particles. I will discuss
some of the technical details of this technique, the current state of
the field, and prospects for the future.