Detecting Radio Emission from Air Showers with LOFAR

TL;DR

LOFAR, the world's largest low-frequency radio telescope, effectively detects cosmic ray air showers through radio emissions, providing high-precision measurements to study their physical processes.

Contribution

This paper presents the first year of cosmic ray air shower detection using LOFAR's dense antenna array, demonstrating its capability for detailed radio emission analysis.

Findings

Successful detection of cosmic ray air showers with LOFAR

High-precision measurements of radio emission from air showers

First year data analysis confirming LOFAR's effectiveness

Abstract

LOFAR (the Low Frequency Array) is the largest radio telescope in the world for observing low frequency radio emission from 10 to 240 MHz. In addition to its use as an interferometric array, LOFAR is now routinely used to detect cosmic ray induced air showers by their radio emission. The LOFAR core in the Netherlands has a higher density of antennas than any dedicated cosmic ray experiment in radio. On an area of $12 \mathrm{km}^2$ more than 2300 antennas are installed. They measure the radio emission from air showers with unprecedented precision and, therefore, give the perfect opportunity to disentangle the physical processes which cause the radio emission in air showers. In parallel to ongoing astronomical observations LOFAR is triggered by an array of particle detectors to record time-series containing cosmic-ray pulses. Cosmic rays have been measured with LOFAR since June 2011. We present the results of the first year of data.