Speaker
Description
Following the experience with LOFAR measurements, we explore some of the interesting possibilities that would be offered by the SKA-Low telescope.
The low-frequency part of the Square Kilometre Array, to be built in Australia, features an enormous antenna density of about 50,000 antennas in the inner core region of radius 500 m, with a frequency band from 50 to 350 MHz. This allows to resolve the shower footprints to smaller length scales compared to LOFAR.
From CoREAS simulations, a SKA-Low antenna model plus noise contributions, and adapted LOFAR analysis scripts, we obtain a resolution in the shower maximum Xmax and energy that is considerably better than at LOFAR.
Furthermore, we explore the possibilities of measuring the longitudinal profile of the air shower beyond $X_{\rm max}$, for individual air showers. This would improve mass composition analysis by measuring an additional composition-dependent quantity. Moreover, it would offer an opportunity to discriminate between the different predictions of hadronic interaction models, hence contributing to hadronic physics at energy levels beyond man-made accelerators.