Cosmic Piano: analysing the sound of the Universe

TL;DR

The Cosmic Piano is an innovative outreach tool that uses musical notes and light flashes triggered by muons from cosmic ray air showers to engage the public and students in particle physics through interactive demonstrations and educational sessions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel musical and visual interface for cosmic ray detection, combining outreach with hands-on scientific analysis for educational purposes.

Findings

Successful public demonstrations at major events

Effective engagement of students through Masterclasses

Bridging outreach and scientific research

Abstract

We present the Cosmic Piano, an innovative outreach tool designed to detect muons from air showers produced by cosmic rays colliding with the atmosphere. The Cosmic Piano consists of scintillator-based modules with avalanche photodiodes (APD) readout, which produce a musical note and a flash of light whenever a muon passes through one of them and triggers its electronics. The Cosmic Piano has been showcased at various high-profile events, including the Montreux Jazz Festival and the EuroScience Open Forum, seamlessly fusing scientific phenomena with live music. Building on its success, we have developed a new, comprehensive Masterclass session aimed at engaging high school and university students. This session includes analysing both simulated cosmic ray events and real data from the Cosmic Piano. The Masterclass provides participants with a hands-on experience that mirrors the experimental procedures used in major physics experiments, such as those conducted at CERN with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collision data. This initiative offers a unique opportunity for students to engage with an active experiment, bridging the gap between outreach and serious scientific research.