hjdh Andrea Misner

Astrophysics Student

Member of “Team Butler”

Supervisor: Dr. Malcolm Butler

From Cosmic Rays to Local Classrooms

High School Physics

How CORSIKA is Shaking Up

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University1

Outline

• High-Energy Particles and Air Showers

• CORSIKA 6.203

• Methods and Results

• An Educational Idea

• When Ideas become Reality: Cosmic Rays In The Classroom

• Educational Benefits

• Future Endeavors

Cosmic Rays

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University2

• Cosmic Rays are ultra-high energy particles, consisting of mostly charged electrons and protons

• Energies of Cosmic Rays can reach 1020 eV (~16J)

• Energies of particle accelerators can reach 1012 eV (~10-7 J)

• The most energetic ones can move at 99.999999 % of the speed of light

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University3

Air Showers

• Air showers occur when a high energy particle strikes the top of the Earth’s atmosphere

• Interested in the particles that survive to the observation level…Muons!

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University4

Extensive Air Showers

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University5

CORSIKA 6.203 (COsmic Ray SImulations for KAscade)

• A Monte Carlo Code to Simulate Extensive Air Showers

• Code Created by Dr. Heck, J. Knapp, J.N. Capdevielle, G. Schatz and T. Thouw at Karlsruhe, Germany

• Primary particles can be protons, light nuclei, and or photons in the code

• Particles are tracked through the atmosphere as they decay into unstable secondaries

•Applies a random seed generator to vary the output data

Goals

• Create visual and graphical representations of the particles at the observation level

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University6

• Produce semi-log plots with slopes that correspond to their energies

• Learn the physics of a cosmic ray air shower for ourselves

7 Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University

Methods

• Output the run_DAT0000## binary files

• Decoded the fort.8 files and learned the data structure

• New corsikaread.f program and found the compressed muon data at the observation level of 11000 cm above sea level

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Saint Mary’s University

Methods Continued…

• Modify and create new IDL and FORTRAN programs to further decode and plot the muon data

• 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107 and 1011 GeV runs with six runs per file

Results Continued…

105 GeV

106 GeV

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105 GeV

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Slope Equation: Y(x) = exp(P(0) + P(1)*X)

Blank out105 GeV

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12 Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University

P(1) = -5.165143e-02 + 9.440057e-03

1x104 GeV

13 Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University

P(1) = -8.936046e-02 + 3.020275e-03

1x105 GeV

14 Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University

P(1) = -1.227701e-01 + 1.376508e-03

1x106 GeV

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Saint Mary’s University

1x107 GeV

P(1) = -1.693818e-01 + 6.967269e-04

16 Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University

An Educational Idea

• 1991 Dr. Pinfold created ALTA (Alberta Large Area Time coincidence Array) and linked it with High Schools

• High Schools are given a detector, and use a website as a guide

17 Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University

All around the world…

• HISPARC (High School Project on Astrophysics Research with Cosmics)

• NALTA (North America Large Area Time Coincidence Array)

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Cosmic Rays in the Classroom Program

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University

• Online program worked into the student’s curriculum

• Local high schools would receive a Cosmic Ray detector and use a website as a guide

• Purpose: To engage high-school students in particle research

www.ap.smu.ca/cosmicray/

Educational Benefits

• Students partake in the study of the most energetic particles ever seen

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• Cost efficient for High Schools

- Detectors are low maintenance and compact

- Computers are in most classrooms today, making the online program easily accessible

• Students get a chance to learn some cutting-edge science

• Setup first school detector at Prince Andrew High School

• Continuing the networking with local high schools on the Imperial Oil Cosmic Rays in the Classroom Project

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University20

Future Endeavors

• Probe deeper into CORSIKA 6.203 and cosmic ray physics, creating more visual representations of air showers

Supervisor: Dr. Malcolm Butler

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Saint Mary’s University

the

Team Members: Jesse Maclean ggIan McLeod and Nigel Ribeiro (Co-op students)

Andrea Misner

Saint Mary’s University22Questions?

hjdhWhere’s Your Classroom?