Seminar on

COSMIC RAYS
Course Code : PH455

Submitted by: Endorsed by :

RANOJIT BARMAN

MSc. 2nd semester

Enrolment ID : PHY17018

Department of Physics, Tezpur University

Cosmic rays are high energetic charged particles that arrive from outside the earth’s atmosphere.
The lowest energy cosmic rays are produced by ordinary stars like sun. For example, during a solar flare
many particles are ejected from the sun, when this solar particles interact with earth’s magnetic poles
where they excite the gases present in earth’s atmosphere causes them to glow. This is observed as
aurora, or the northern/southern lights. The main constituent of cosmic rays is protons, nuclei of helium
and some other heavier nuclei.

Discovery:

In august 1912, Austrian physicist Victor Hess made a historic balloon flight that opened a new
window on matter in the universe. He experimentally found that our atmosphere is not only influenced by
our solar particles but also some other high energetic particles that were coming from our distant galactic
sources as well as other extragalactic sources. He discovered cosmic rays. He received Nobel Prize for his
discovery. In 1991, an observation became a shock to astrophysicists. The university of Utah’s Fly’s Eye
Cosmic Ray Detector detected an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray with energy estimated to be approximately
3x1020 eV . This is 1020 times than photon energy of visible light.

Interaction with earth’s atmosphere:

The cosmic rays hardly ever hit the ground but collide with atmospheric nuclei, usually several
kilometres high. In such collisions, many new particles are usually created and the colliding nuclei
evaporate to a large extent. Most of the particles are pi-mesons. Neutral pions decay very quickly, usually
into two gamma rays. Charged pions also decay but after a long time. Therefore some of the pions may
collide with yet another nucleus of the air before decaying, which would be into a muon and a neutrino.
The fragments of the incoming particles also interact again, producing new particles.
Origin of cosmic rays:

Although cosmic rays have been known for several years, their origins have not been satisfactorily
elucidated. Some low energy cosmic ray sources are found in our own galaxy, which are some ordinary
stars. Since cosmic rays are charged particles so their directions are randomized when they are influenced
with magnetic fields, so it becomes hard to know the origin of the cosmic particles. However we can trace
the cosmic rays in other regions of galaxy by observing the electromagnetic radiations they produce. The
main sources of cosmic ray particles in our galaxy are found to be the ordinary stars like sun, magnetic
stars, e.g neutron stars, supernovae explosions, pulsars, quasars etc. Among them, Supernovae are
counted as the main source of these particles, because ordinary stars and magnetic stars cannot produce
such high energetic particles, only some violent explosions like supernovae can only cause ultra-high-
energetic cosmic particles. Apart from our galactic sources, there are some other sources like AGN, GRB,
that can bring up particles with energies of more than 1015 eV .

Detection methods:

There are several methods of detecting cosmic rays currently in use. Some of them are listed below.

1) Cherenkov telescope: Cherenkov telescopes are designed to detect low energy cosmic rays (<200
MeV) cosmic rays by means of analyzing their Cherenkov radiation, which for cosmic rays are
gamma rays emitted as they travel faster than speed of light in their medium.

2) Air shower arrays: They measure the charged particles which passes through them. EAS array
detectors measure much high energy cosmic rays than air Cherenkov telescopes. They employ
plastic scintillators in order to detect particles.
3) High altitude balloons: In this method, sheets of clear plastic, like 0.25 mm Lexan Polycarbonate,
are stacked together and exposed directly to cosmic rays in space or high altitude.
4) Cloud chambers: It is used to detect the secondary muons created when a pion decays.

References:

• High Energy Astrophysics, jlc@mssl.ucl.ac.uk, http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/

• Shipman, Wilson, and Todd, (2003). An Introduction to Physical Science (10th Edition).
• Wikipedia, YouTube.