1. The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project (CROP): An outreach and education experiment in Nebraska Funded by a $1,342,000 grant from the National Science Foundation Teacher Enhancement Program and High Energy Physics A high school based Pierre Auger Observatory

2. State of Nebraska Pierre Auger northern hemisphere site in Utah Where is Nebraska? Fermilab Batavia, Illinois

3. CROP Project Goals Educational Prepare teams of high school teachers and students to get involved in studies of extended cosmic ray showers using modern research techniques. 4-week summer intensive training program at UNL Biweekly phone conferences or chat rooms Two 1-day meetings every year Web-based help pages Scientific Build a statewide network of cosmic ray detectors. Retired CASA detectors in weather-proof enclosures on roof GPS receiver gives local time stamp for shower arrival PC inside school takes data through a DAQ card at each site Student teams share data over Internet searching for time coincidences Search for the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays.

4. CROP Personnel at UNL, 2003 CROP staff at University of Nebraska Faculty: Dan Claes and Greg Snow Educational evaluator: Dr. Duane Shell Physics graduate student: Aidyl Galafa September 2002, Computer Science graduate students: Steve Becker: Programming of DAQ card Jared Kite: LabView control screen for DAQ card Cory Strope: Computer simulations of cosmic ray air showers January 2003 Secondary science ed graduate student: Tracie Evans Undergraduate research assistants: M. Dennsberger, M. Everett, A. Fuchser, P. Jacobson, A. Kubik, D. Larsen, S. Mahoney Administrative Secretary: Marilyn McDowell Lab manager: High school teacher, John Rogers Summer 2003

5. CROP article in Lincoln Journal Star, 7 August 2003

6. CROP schools enlisted in 2000 2001 2002 2003 250 miles 450 miles The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project A grid of cosmic ray research stations expanding across the state Coleridge McPherson Mullen Loup Spalding

7. High school teams attend a 4-week summer workshop at UNL with class and lab activities 2000: Lincoln Zoo, Lincoln Northeast, Mt. Michael, Marian, Norfolk 2001: Lincoln Lutheran, Lincoln High, Omaha Westside, Anselmo-Merna, Osceola, Wayne State College … and new schools will be enlisted in CROP each year 2002: Fairbury, Wayne, Roncalli Catholic, Bancroft-Rosalie, Waterloo 2003: Coleridge, Loup, McPherson, Mullen, Spalding,

8. 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 Sufficient hardware for all Nebraska high schools

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

10. Equipment recovery trip to Dugway, Utah, May 2001

11. The Science of CROP Each school records building-sized showers -- plenty of rate. 2500 ft 2 shower (10 14 eV ) Neighboring schools in same city (Lincoln, Omaha) see coincidences from highest-energy showers -- low rate. 10 sq.mi shower ~10 19 eV 50 sq.mi shower ~10 20 eV Nebraska is 450 x 250 square miles -- schools separated by very large distances explore whether showers come in large, correlated bursts That is, does the whole state of Nebraska ever light up?

12. The Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum (1 particle per m 2 per sec) (1 particle per m 2 per year) (1 particle per km 2 per year) Cosmic Ray Flux Energy (eV) Building-sized showers City-sized showers The Science Reach of CROP

13. 250 miles 450 miles CROP can also search for coincidences over large distances Does the whole state ever light up at once? Size of Pierre Auger site, 1600 detectors

14. Possible Source of Coincident,Widely-Separated Showers The GZ Effect (Gerasimova-Zatsepin) Cosmic ray iron nucleus Optical photon from the sun Earth’s Surface Nuclear fragments from photo-disintegration Watson and Medina-Tanco revisit this 1960-predicted phenomenon in astro-ph/9808033 Calculation for 6 × 10 17 eV Fe  Mn + proton Shower separations of 100’s to 1000’s of kilometers possible, dominated by deflections by interplanetary magnetic fields Rates not encouraging

15. Lab Curriculum Polishing, cleaning scintillator Gluing PMT and wrapping scintillator Assembling high-voltage supply Oscilloscope lesson Turning on counters, source tests, finding/fixing light leaks Measure counter efficiency, high voltage plateau Class Curriculum History of cosmic rays Interaction of charged particles with matter Scintillators and photomultiplier tubes Cosmic ray energy spectrum Julian calendar, UTM, galactic coordinates Global positioning system Ionizing particle detectors Calorimeters and showering Particle zoo and the Standard Model Tour of high-energy particle accelerators Random events, probability Monte Carlo simulations Lightning protection Curriculum Topics Available What we expect to accomplish in 4 weeks Preparing detectors to take to your schools, experimental techniques Learning the physics of cosmic rays and particle detectors

16. Photomultiplier Tubes Schematic drawing of a photomultiplier tube Photons eject electrons via photoelectric effect Photocathode Each incident electron ejects about 4 new electrons at each dynode stage Vacuum inside tube “Multiplied” signal comes out here An applied voltage difference between dynodes makes electrons accelerate from stage to stage Incident light from scintillator

17. CROP teachers and students gain valuable hands-on experience in bona fide research Student team at Lincoln’s Zoo School with their detectors Marian High School’s measurement of cosmic ray rate vs. barometric pressure Students present results in conference-style meetings at UNL Students refurbish and assemble their own detectors before installing them at school Participants learn oscilloscope use and build electronics Increasing barometric pressure Number of cosmic rays detected

18. Endless scraping, polishing, and soldering

19. Endless wrapping, taping, and observing

20. Endless cabling and adjusting

21. Pre-workshop and Post-workshop testing Positive outcomes-assessment results from professional evaluator

22. Detectors in a vertical “telescope” Mini-experiments Coincidence rate vs. barometric pressure Day-night variation of cosmic ray rate Coincidence rate vs. angle of incidence Coincidence rate vs. vertical separation

23. Electronics Configuration for Telescope

24. Detector set-ups at schools “Telescope” set-ups for indoor experiments

25. Barometric Pressure (mmHg) 727 747 4-Fold Coincidences / 2 hours 3000 4200 Statistical error bars shown 1.3% decrease per mmHg Marian High School’s Measurement of Cosmic Ray Rate vs. Barometric Pressure

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

27. 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, Fermilab (Quarknet), Univ. Washington 43 Mhz (24 nsec) clock interpolates between 1 pps GPS ticks for trigger time TDC’s give relative times of 4 inputs with 75 psec resolution

28. 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

29. Students familiarizing themselves with data-acquisition card and PC

31. Rooftop mini-experiments for CROP Schools 1 11 3 2 22 33 With counters spread out in horizontal plane 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 coincidence rates vs. detector separation Different configurations (square, triangle as shown) Optimization of counter geometry on school rooftop Singles rates vs. rainfall Simultaneous data taking with other schools

32. Coincidence Rates vs. Separation Experiment October – December 2002 Installation on Physics Department roof, February 2002 4 detectors on corners of a square 15 meter (45 feet) separation shown 15 m

33. 4-fold Coincidence Rates vs. Separation Days since October 1, 2002 4-fold counts/ hour Touching 15 ft 15 ft, 1 lead 15 ft, 2 lead 30 ft 45 ft Rates high enough to sustain student interest

34. Lincoln High School rooftop Presently taking data simultaneously at 3 sites 21 schools received data-acquisition cards at September 27 meeting at UNL All schools start taking data this semester

35. CROP Pierre Auger northern hemisphere site in Utah SCRODSALTA CHICOS WALTA ALTA NALTA The North American Large-Scale Time-Coincidence Array http://csr.phys.ualberta.ca/nalta/ Includes links to individual project Web pages

36. Colorado Aspen High School, Aspen, CO Basalt High School, Basalt, CO Roaring Fork Valley High School, Carbondale, CO Lake County High School, Leadville, CO The highest-elevation school in the U.S. -- 10,152 feet ASL Illinois Wheaton North High School, Wheaton, IL SALTA: Snowmass Area Large Time-Coincidence Array Initiated during Snowmass 2001 Future of HEP Conference

37. Replica of Hess’ Electroscope Portable Geiger Counters Wilkes in HessianOutfit

38. Lift off ! Data transmitted live to ground via radio Crowd gathers to watch Victor Hess flight reenactment Unicorn Balloon Company, Snowmass, CO

39. Ground level at Snowmass Two flights with consistent results Hovered at 1000 ft increments in altitude for 5 minutes Cosmic ray rates measured with portable Geiger counters Same effects observed by Victor Hess See FermiNews, July 27, 2001

40. The Washington-Area Large-Scale Time-Coincidence Array http://www.phys.washington.edu/~walta Seattle area map showing schools CROP’s closest relative Run by University of Washington, Seattle Jeff Wilkes, et al. WALTA also uses refurbished CASA detectors

41. Institutions LA area schools California Institute of Technology California State University, Northridge University of California, Irvine Funding Caltech NSF Nuclear Physics Los Angeles Area Schools (Animation by L.A. school teacher)

42. 164 detector stations recovered 2 detectors per school foreseen About 39 schools in process of being outfitted

43. Conclusions on CROP * CROP, in its 4 th year, will soon reach a major milestone: Simultaneous data-taking at all schools, offline searches for extensive air shower coincidences * Other emerging efforts will enable the NALTA consortium to search for very long-range correlations * Curriculum, hardware, software has been developed to facilitate the start-up of new efforts

44. Nationwide program which links high energy physicists with teams of local high school physics teachers to engage in active research projects Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, project office at Fermilab In its 5 th year, QuarkNet centers established in 29 states involving over 400 teachers and their students QuarkNet continues to grow in the U.S. http://quarknet.fnal.gov Wide range of ongoing activities, examples: Hardware: CMS hadron calorimeter optical decoder units, PMT testing and database Analysis: Using distilled Tevatron data, Z mass peak reconstruction, top quark decay kinematics Growing emphasis on local cosmic ray studies with various techniques: scintillators, Geiger counters, proportional tubes Ongoing work to disseminate activities developed at a given site to all QuarkNet participants U.S. QuarkNet sites

45. Some QuarkNet Activities CMS phototube test setup (Univ. Iowa) Counting cosmic ray muons on top of Sears Tower in Chicago (Univ. Illinois, Chicago) Extensive air shower array at University of Washington

46. CROP, QuarkNet, and many other U.S. Education/Outreach programs are summarized in the booklet “Particle Physics Education and Outreach 2001” Available at http://www-ed.fnal.gov/hep/home.html

47. Education/Outreach Committee of the American Physical Society’s Division of Particles and Fields (formed 2003) Members: Liz Simmons (chair), Michael Barnett, Marcela Carena, Judy Jackson, Harrison Prosper, Randy Ruchti, Jim Siegrist, Greg Snow Activities: Feed info on EPO efforts to Interactions.org web site coordinated by all HEP labs worldwide Advocate for EPO plenary talks at future DPF meetings to educate wider community and get more people involved Coordinate widely dispersed EPO efforts of each HEP experiment to establish communication, avoid duplication of materials and activities development Provide guidance and “best practices” to investigators writing the now-required EPO part of their NSF and DoE base funding proposals Contribute to planning of U.S. activities in 2005 World Year of Physics

48. World Year of Physics 2005 in the United States “Einstein in the 21 st Century” Planned Projects Poster Contest Interactive Website PhysicsQuest Public Lectures Physics on the Road APS Meeting Events Distributed Computing Project

49. Planned Projects: Poster Contest Nationwide poster contest aimed at U.S. 5 th graders (generally aged 10). There are ~4,000,000 U.S. students. Theme: “Einstein in Everyday Life” contest instructions will be accompanied by lessons and activities that fit in with national science and history guidelines for U.S. 5 th graders. Winning poster nationwide will be made into a promotional poster for WYP2005; distributed to U.S. schools.

50. Planned Projects: PhysicsQuest Fictional physics “mystery” aimed at U.S. middle school students (generally aged 11-13). There are ~12,000,000 such students. Students will receive an “evidence kit” they will use to solve the mystery. “Clues” will be available online. Involves students in the process of using science to solve problems.

51. Planned Projects: Physics on the Road “Branding” existing traveling programs usually run by university/college physics department personnel (approximately 25 programs). Some are demonstration based, others are “hands-on” experiments that travel to primary and secondary schools exposing the students to physics. Developing one or two 2005-related physics demos to be used by all POTR teams.

52. Planned Projects: Interactive Website http://www.physics2005.org Website will include: Searchable database of Nationwide events Kits on how to plan your own 2005 event Puzzles and activities for teachers and students Contest information (Poster contest, PhysicsQuest and others) Einstein History in collaboration with AIP’s Center for the History of Physics

53. Planned Projects: Public Lectures We will encourage physics departments across the country to host public lectures focusing on physics. Our Topical Group on Gravitation can help us create a Speakers List for physics departments to use.

54. Planned Projects: APS Meeting Events The American Physical Society has ~ 20 national, topical and regional meetings annually. We plan to have special exhibits/displays at many of the APS meetings. Larger meetings could have special “Physics Expositions” designed especially for the public.

55. Planned Projects: Distributed Computing Project A grass-roots, distributed computing search that would be similar to SETI@home screen-saver, which utilizes CPU time of idle computers to analyze radio antennae data for signs of extra- terrestrial life. In this project, participants would aid in the search for gravitational wave signals in data collected by the LIGO Observatory.

56. Collaborations Although the American Physical Society is spearheading the U.S. efforts to celebrate the World Year of Physics, it is collaborating with many other organizations. American Association of Physics Teachers American Institute of Physics Society of Physics Students National Science Foundation U.S. Department of Energy NASA U.S. Science Museums Vinaya K. Sathyasheelappa U.S. WYP2005 Project Coordinator physics2005@aps.org (301) 209-3217