The ground-based large-area wide-angle gamma-ray and cosmic-ray experiment HiSCORE

TL;DR

HiSCORE is a proposed large-area ground-based detector designed to observe cosmic rays and gamma-rays from 10 TeV to 1 EeV, using Cherenkov light sampling to explore high-energy astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

The paper introduces the design and simulation results of HiSCORE, a new wide-angle air-shower detector for high-energy cosmic ray and gamma-ray observations.

Findings

Sensitivity comparable to CTA at 50 TeV

Extends gamma-ray detection up to PeV energies

Detects charged cosmic rays from 100 TeV to 1 EeV

Abstract

The question of the origin of cosmic rays and other questions of astroparticle and particle physics can be addressed with indirect air-shower observations above 10 TeV primary energy. We propose to explore the cosmic ray and gamma-ray sky (accelerator sky) in the energy range from 10 TeV to 1 EeV with the new ground-based large-area wide angle (~0.85 sterad) air-shower detector HiSCORE (Hundred*i Square-km Cosmic ORigin Explorer). The HiSCORE detector is based on non-imaging air-shower Cherenkov light-front sampling using an array of light-collecting stations. A full detector simulation and basic reconstruction algorithms have been used to assess the performance of HiSCORE. First prototype studies for different hardware components of the detector array have been carried out. The resulting sensitivity of HiSCORE to gamma-rays will be comparable to CTA at 50 TeV and will extend the sensitive energy range for gamma-rays up to the PeV regime. HiSCORE will also be sensitive to charged cosmic rays between 100 TeV and 1 EeV.