High School Cosmic Ray Projects in Europe Gregory Snow / University of Nebraska To replace Dr. Bob Van Eijk / NIKHEF, Amsterdam 1.HiSPARC in the Netherlands 2.Report on 2 nd CRSP meeting (Cosmic Ray School Projects) Lisbon, Portugal, September 9, 2006

European High School Cosmic Ray Sites Reporting at the Lisbon meeting: Portugal The Netherlands Belgium Greece Italy Denmark Poland Russia Sweden

Group photo from first CRSP meeting NIKHEF, Amsterdam, 7-8 March 2005

One slide summary of the situation in Europe There are a few mature and several emerging like-minded efforts Teams of high school teachers and students work with university physics groups to study extensive air showers using school-based detectors Projects embrace both educational and scientific goals All projects employ plastic scintillators placed on high school rooftops, except EEE in Italy which will employ Multi-Gap Resistive Plate Chambers GPS receivers give local time stamp for cosmic ray events recorded locally, internet allows teams to share data and search for building-sized or city-sized showers and long-distance correlations Most efforts are/have developed readout electronics, data acquisition software and analysis techniques independently, relying on local expertise Full fledged start-up or expansion limited by funding and manpower Desire for a more global, unified approach to eliminate duplication of effort and to standardize/share detectors, procedures, data format, curriculum materials, …

At present: 5 clusters in NL, with national project manager Groningen, Utrecht, Nijmegen, Leiden, Amsterdam (each with their own leader) Sites in The Netherlands

At present: About 42 detector stations operational or pending Sites in The Netherlands

GPS antennas Present price per school: 6500 Euros (20% cost is scintillator) Sites in The Netherlands Car top ski racks!

Status HiSPARC Amsterdam: 20 detectors : Groningen: 4 detectors Leiden: 7 detectors Nijmegen: 9 detectors : Utrecht: 2 detectors Difficult to keep detectors online.

Annual Symposium April 2006

5m PORTUGAL Sites in Portugal 9

150 Km 5 High schools in Lisbon 3 High schools in Lisbon metropol [3-30]Km 2 High schools in Beja PORTUGAL Sites in Portugal Beja

Belgium

The HELYCON Detector Module Greece

The EEE project (Extreme Energy Events) The physics and the detector F.Riggi, for the EEE Collaboration Department of Physics and Astronomy and INFN, Catania Lisboa, September 9, 2006

Carbon layer Mylar glass Mylar Carbon layer Pick-up electrode Gas gaps ~ 300  m Pick-up electrode Anode 0 V Cathode -10 kV (-2 kV) (-4 kV) (-6 kV) (-8 kV) Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chambers The basic working principles Developed by the ALICE TOF group, to achieve excellent time resolution (40 ps) and efficiency Each MRPC is a stack of resistive plates, transparent to the avalanches generated inside the gas gaps. The induced signal on ext.electrodes is the sum over all the gaps

10 13 eV10 14 eV10 15 eV10 16 eV COSMOS Simulations of proton-induced air showers in Catania metropolitan area Physics topics to investigate Correlation between telescopes not too far away (i.e. in the same town) may allow the detection of extended showers initiated by high energy primaries.

km MC simulation (made with the COSMOS generator) of an Extensive Air Shower induced by a eV proton. At the ground level 1 million muons (red dots) arrive, over an area with radius at least 2 km.

Lisbon, 9 September 2006 Toward a European Organisation Jan-Willem van Holten & Bob van Eijk

International organization: Why? Provide platform to share experiences To optimise information exchange between the various participants: –Specific scientific knowledge –Instruction material for high-school teachers –Instruction material for high-school students Make efficient use of limited manpower Scientific co-operation

Advisory Board Organisation… Steering Group Physics Group Detectors Group ELO Group Curriculum Group Documentation & Web Group Database & DAQ Group PR, Editorial & Speaker Board

Aiming toward a worldwide network of cosmic ray detectors