LORA: A scintillator array for LOFAR to measure extensive air showers

TL;DR

LORA is a scintillator array integrated with LOFAR designed to detect and analyze extensive air showers caused by high-energy cosmic rays, enhancing LOFAR's capability to study cosmic ray phenomena.

Contribution

This paper introduces the design, installation, and performance evaluation of the LORA scintillator array at LOFAR, enabling detailed measurements of air showers.

Findings

LORA successfully detects extensive air showers.

The array effectively triggers LOFAR antennas for air shower registration.

Performance metrics demonstrate reliable operation of the scintillator array.

Abstract

The measurement of the radio emission from extensive air showers, induced by high-energy cosmic rays is one of the key science projects of the LOFAR radio telescope. The LOfar Radboud air shower Array (LORA) has been installed in the core of LOFAR in the Netherlands. The main purpose of LORA is to measure the properties of air showers and to trigger the read-out of the LOFAR radio antennas to register extensive air showers. The experimental set-up of the array of scintillation detectors and its performance are described.