# ICRC2015

July 29, 2015 to August 6, 2015
World Forum
Europe/Amsterdam timezone

## New concept of very high energy cosmic ray observation by wide field-of-view telescope

Aug 1, 2015, 3:30 PM
1h
Amazon Foyer (World Forum)

### Amazon Foyer

#### World Forum

Churchillplein 10 2517 JW Den Haag The Netherlands
Board: 161
Poster contribution CR-IN

### Speaker

Dr Kenji Shinozaki (Unverisity of Tubingen)

### Description

The chemical composition of the very high energy cosmic rays (VHECRs) is an important piece of information to investigate their origin and acceleration mechanism. Possible change of chemical composition at the knee energy range has been reported by air shower experiments based on sampling of muons or Cherenkov photons. So far low flux of VHECRs along with uncertainties due to indirect detection, has limited the precision of chemical composition measurement. It is thus essential to improve primary mass estimation via measurement of additional parameters of the air showers. In the present work, we propose a new concept of VHECR observation using ultra-wide field-of-view (FOV) refractive imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope (IACT). The wide-FOV optics have been designed in the framework of JEM-EUSO mission for ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) observation from the International Space Station. The pathfinder experiments testing such optics have been successfully operated on the balloon and on the ground. The technique of imaging of the Cherenkov light hasbeen used in GeV--TeV energies by IACT arrays using $\gg 10$-m-scale reflective telescopes. Above $\sim 10^{15}$~eV, the Cherenkov light from cosmic rays initiated air showers spreads over a few km that can be detected even by meter-scale telescopes. At these energies, Cherenkov images of distant air showers span $\sim 15^\circ$ and thus wide FOV otpics is necessary for their detection and characterization. To evaluate potential performances of this concept, a large number of air showers were generated using CORSIKA packages. In the presentation, we introduce the basic concept of wide-FOV IACT technique for VHECR observation and characterize the performance of the sets for the chemical composition study. In addition, we discuss prospective advantages of EUSO-type wide-FOV telescopes for VHECR and UHECR physics.
Registration number following "ICRC2015-I/" 531 -- not specified --

### Primary authors

Prof. Andrii Neronov (University of Geneva) Dr Kenji Shinozaki (Unverisity of Tubingen)

### Co-authors

Prof. Andrea Santangelo (University of Tubingen) Dr Simona Toscano (Vrije University, Brussels)

### Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.