The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project (CROP) in Nebraska Gregory Snow UNL Department of Physics and Astronomy September 22, 2006 Overview and status Lessons learned in 6 years Education and training benefits Our new funding proposal (Looking for Advisory Panel Members )

CROP article in Lincoln Journal Star, 7 August 2003

A few facts Funded by $1.34 Million NSF grant, Co-PIs Greg Snow and Dan Claes 26 Nebraska and 5 Colorado schools enlisted and trained in summer workshops of duration 2-4 weeks, about 5 new schools per summer Venture into Colorado was a joint effort by CROP, WALTA, ALTA Hosted 2 one-day meetings each academic year for participants from all years to report results, exchange faulty equipment, receive equipment and software upgrades, refresh training or train new students External evaluation of this period has shown that CROP has accomplished most of its educational and scientific goals listed in the original proposal CROP has also served as a great training ground for staff (undergrad, grad students) at UNL

Highlighted squares = participating schools

The Chicago Air Shower Array CROP uses retired detectors from the Chicago Air Shower Array 1089 boxes each with: 4 scintillators and photomultiplier tubes (PMT) 1 high voltage and 1 low voltage power supply Two removal trips (September 1999, May 2001) yielded over 2000 scintillator panels, 2000 PMTs, 500 low and power supplies

U.S. Army Photo September 30, 1999 The CROP team at Chicago Air Shower Array (CASA) site

Equipment recovery trip to Dugway, Utah, May 2001

5 Volt DC power To PC serial port Four analog PMT inputs Discriminator threshold adjust GPS receiver input Event counter Programmable logic device Time-to-digital converters CROP data acquisition electronics card Developed by Univ. Nebraska, Univ. Washington, Fermilab (Quarknet) 43 Mhz (24 nsec) clock interpolates between 1 pps GPS ticks for trigger time TDC’s give relative times of 4 inputs with 75 picosecond resolution

User-friendly, LabView-based control and monitoring GUI Two detectors firing at the same time Data stream for each event Event counter Elapsed run time

User-friendly, LabView-based control and monitoring GUI Developed by CROP students Jared Kite and Jason Keller in collaboration with WALTA Automated threshold scan for discriminator settings

17 July 2000 Summer 2000 workshop

Summer 2001 Workshop

Summer 2002 workshop

Summer 2004 Workshop Activities Detector assembly and testing

Summer 2004 Workshop Activities Oscilloscope and DAQ card lessons

Summer 2004 Workshop Activities Practice experiments to be performed at school

Summer 2004 Workshop Activities Detectors return to school

Detector set-ups at schools “Telescope” set-ups for indoor experiments Rate vs. barometric pressure Day-night variation Rate vs. angle from zenith Light attenuation vs. distance from PMT

Installation at Lincoln High School, August 2003 GPS receiver Several school in process of moving to the roof after indoor experiements

Other Rooftop Installations Some schools have installed detectors on their rooftops and are studying coincidence rates vs. separation

Summer week refresher workshop Over half the participating schools attended New student (and teacher) training Preparation for rooftop data taking

Omaha’s Creighton University Joined Us Masters degree student Lyle Sass, our “ambassador” to NE high schools Fr. Tom McShane with his “Berkeley” CR detector

Visitors cementing ties to other projects Visitors from HiSparc, Netherlands, and Turkey Auger Observatory collaborator Dr. Pablo Bauleo, Colorado State Univ.

Morning classroom sessions Dan explaining detection of radiation with electroscopes Presented abbreviated version of our full classroom curriculum

Afternoon lab sessions New students had exposure to full detector assembly and testing procedures

Each school’s detector set ups exercised Setting discriminator thresholds and efficiency scans for high voltage settings

Moving detectors outside for overnight air shower data taking run

Each school made new rooftop enclosures

Excellent extensive air shower data taking run overnight

New enclosures making it to rooftops Westside High School Omaha, NE Weights, important !!

Some lessons learned in 6 years Big variation among schools in independent activity/investigations during school year. Some real successes, some inactive sites Close contact very important during academic year Scheme for replacing/training new students as classes graduate important Classroom integration, affect on curriculum is not automatic. Scheme to guide this needed. Hardware and software delays create frustration and idleness Hard to recruit for long summer workshops High school schedules are packed, hard to get full participation in academic year Saturday meetings of all participants

Mount Michael High School “The Science Teacher”, November 2001

CROP research has been the basis for several student science fair projects that have placed highly in national competitions Ben Plowman Lincoln High School Study of light attenuation in CROP scintillators as a function of distance from the photomultiplier position

Nebraska’s 2006 PAEMST Science Teacher Award Recipient Jim Rynerson Physics Teacher Lincoln High School CROP participant since 2001

Successes of CROP staff at UNL CROP undergraduate Katie Everett now in physics grad school University of Buffalo CROP undergraduates Andy Kubik: Northwestern University Andrea Fuscher: Vanderbilt University

Teachers College Masters Degree Student Tracy Evans has gone on to high school science teaching in Nebraska CROP undergrad Jason Keller now in physics grad school At UNL Successes of CROP staff at UNL

Our first advanced degree Xioashu Xu M.S. degree in Statistics August 2006 “Probability of Extensive Air Showers Based on the Study of Accidental Coincidences in the Cosmic Ray Observatory Project”

Main thrust: statewide growth to ~100 schools + continuous data-taking and analysis State schools administered through 19 Educational Service Units Present schools serve as “hubs” for expansion in each ESU Train through regional workshops, 2-3 per summer Submit renewal NSF proposal early late October 2006

Status of Argentina site 1000 out of 1600 surface detectors installed making it the world’s largest array to date 3 out of 4 fluorescence telescope buildings complete The Pierre Auger Observatory Cosmic ray air shower animation of an actual event

The Pierre Auger Observatory Grid of Surface Detectors

The Pierre Auger Observatory Fluorescence Detector Building Fluorescence detectors “look” through windows at night Antenna for transmission of data

“Standard” 3,100 km 2 10,000km 2 15,000km 2 Auger North Colorado Pump station mesa Stulp Hill Widener Hill Black Butte Pruitt Mound HW 287 HW 116 Lamar Springfield Jim Cronin

We now have the equipment in Lamar for one detector set-up Lamar Upcoming proposal for Phase II of CROP – statewide expansion – will include SE Colorado extension and stronger tie to Auger Observatory

CROP detectors already used in Auger North outreach F. Sarazin and G. Snow mounted an Auger display with posters, brochures, Geiger counters, scintillators. oscilloscopes, … Regional science fair at Lamar Community College May 2006

I haven’t mentioned the great work Dan has led with CROP’s Colorado schools making measurements of muon backgrounds in the Henderson Mine as part of DUSEL/UNO development See Dan’s talk tomorrow morning

CROP Pierre Auger northern hemisphere site in southeast Colorado SCRODSALTA CHICOS WALTA ALTA NALTA The North American Large-Scale Time-Coincidence Array Includes links to individual project Web pages TECOP PARTICLE

Aiming toward a worldwide network of cosmic ray detectors