SPACE AND COSMIC RAY PHYSICS SEMINAR

University of Maryland
Computer & Space Science Building, Room 2400
4:30 PM Monday, 13 November
Coffee, Tea & Cookies 4:00-4:30 PM

John Krizmanic
NASA GSFC

The Orbiting Wide-angle Light collectors (OWL) Experiment: Observing Ultra-high Energy Cosmic Rays from Space

Suggested by John Linsley, a space-based experiment measuring the ultra-high energy (E > 1019 eV) component of the cosmic radiation enables an extremely large event acceptance aperture and thus allows a high statistics measurement of these rare events. The design of such a space-based mission has been extensively studied at GSFC and other institutions. The Orbiting Wide-angle Light collectors (OWL) Experiment promises to perform such measurements by imaging the air fluorescence signal from giant airshowers induced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays. In this talk, I will describe the OWL instruments and discuss the underlying physics and detector simulations used to quantify the capability of OWL to measure ultra-high energy cosmic rays. The potential for using OWL to measure high-energy neutrinos will also be discussed.


Sponsored by: Department of Physics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland. For information call John Paquette at (301) 405-6237 or go to the UMD Space Physics group seminar web site.

For free parking please park in lot DD or anywhere on levels 1-2 in lot B (the big parking garage) after 4:00 pm. Make sure that you park in a spot WITHOUT a parking meter. More parking information is at the seminar website.