by Justin Bray (University of Manchester)

Abstract. 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.

Image: Simulated radio footprint of a cosmic-ray air-shower on the low-frequency core of the Square Kilometre Array (by A. Zilles, presented at ARENA 2016, Groningen)