The%20Cosmic%20Ray%20Observatory%20Project%20(CROP):

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The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project (CROP) An
outreach and education experiment in Nebraska
Funded by a 1,342,000 grant from the National
Science Foundation Teacher Enhancement Program
and High Energy Physics
A high school based Pierre Auger Observatory
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Where is Nebraska?
Fermilab Batavia, Illinois
State of Nebraska
Pierre Auger northern hemisphere site in Utah
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CROP Project Goals

• Educational
• Prepare teams of high school teachers and
  students to get involved
• in studies of extended cosmic ray showers using
  modern research
• techniques.
• 4-week summer intensive training program at UNL
• Biweekly phone conferences or chat rooms
• Two 1-day meetings every year
• Web-based help pages
• Scientific
• Build a statewide network of cosmic ray
  detectors.
• Retired CASA detectors in weather-proof
  enclosures on roof
• GPS receiver gives local time stamp for shower
  arrival
• PC inside school takes data through a DAQ card
  at each site
• Student teams share data over Internet searching
  for time coincidences
• Search for the sources of ultra-high energy
  cosmic rays.

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CROP Personnel at UNL, 2003

• CROP staff at University of Nebraska
• Faculty Dan Claes and Greg Snow
• Educational evaluator Dr. Duane Shell
• Physics graduate student Aidyl Galafa
• September 2002, Computer Science
• graduate students
• Steve Becker Programming of
• DAQ card
• Jared Kite LabView control screen
• for DAQ card
• Cory Strope Computer simulations
• of cosmic ray air showers
• January 2003
• Secondary science ed graduate student Tracie
  Evans
• Undergraduate research assistants M.
  Dennsberger, M. Everett,

Summer 2003
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CROP article in Lincoln Journal Star, 7 August
2003
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The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project A grid of
cosmic ray research stations expanding across the
state
250 miles
450 miles
CROP schools enlisted in 2000 2001 2002
2003
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High school teams attend a 4-week summer workshop
at UNL with class and lab activities
2000 Lincoln Zoo, Lincoln Northeast, Mt.
Michael, Marian, Norfolk
2002 Fairbury, Wayne, Roncalli
Catholic, Bancroft-Rosalie, Waterloo
and new schools will be enlisted in CROP each
year
2001 Lincoln Lutheran, Lincoln High, Omaha
Westside, Anselmo-Merna, Osceola, Wayne State
College
2003 Coleridge, Loup, McPherson, Mullen,
Spalding,
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The Chicago Air Shower Array

• CROP uses retired detectors from the Chicago Air
  Shower Array
• 1089 boxes each with
• 4 scintillators and photomultiplier tubes (PMT)
• 1 high voltage and 1 low voltage power supply
• Two removal trips (September 1999, May 2001)
  yielded over
• 2000 scintillator panels, 2000 PMTs, 500 low
  and power supplies
• Sufficient hardware for all Nebraska high schools

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The CROP team at Chicago Air Shower Array (CASA)
site
September 30, 1999
U.S. Army Photo
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Equipment recovery trip to Dugway, Utah, May 2001
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The Science of CROP

• Each school records building-sized showers --
  plenty of rate.
• 2500 ft2 shower (1014 eV )
• Neighboring schools in same city (Lincoln,
  Omaha) see coincidences
• from highest-energy showers -- low rate.
• 10 sq.mi shower 1019 eV
• 50 sq.mi shower 1020 eV
• Nebraska is 450 x 250 square miles -- schools
  separated by very
• large distances explore whether showers come in
  large,
• correlated bursts
• That is, does the whole state of Nebraska ever
  light up?

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The Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum
Cosmic Ray Flux
(1 particle per m2 per sec)
(1 particle per m2 per year)
The Science Reach of CROP
City-sized showers
Building-sized showers
(1 particle per km2 per year)
Energy (eV)
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CROP can also search for coincidences over large
distances
Size of Pierre Auger site, 1600 detectors
250 miles
450 miles
Does the whole state ever light up at once?
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Possible Source of Coincident,Widely-Separated
Showers The GZ Effect (Gerasimova-Zatsepin)
Cosmic ray iron nucleus

• Watson and Medina-Tanco
• revisit this 1960-predicted
• phenomenon in
• astro-ph/9808033
• Calculation for 6 1017 eV
• Fe ? Mn proton
• Shower separations of
• 100s to 1000s of kilometers
• possible, dominated by
• deflections by interplanetary
• magnetic fields
• Rates not encouraging

Optical photon from the sun
Nuclear fragments from photo-disintegration
Earths Surface
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• Lab Curriculum
• Polishing, cleaning scintillator
• Gluing PMT and wrapping scintillator
• Assembling high-voltage supply
• Oscilloscope lesson
• Turning on counters, source tests,
  finding/fixing light leaks
• Measure counter efficiency, high voltage plateau
• Class Curriculum
• History of cosmic rays
• Interaction of charged particles with matter
• Scintillators and photomultiplier tubes
• Cosmic ray energy spectrum
• Julian calendar, UTM, galactic coordinates
• Global positioning system
• Ionizing particle detectors
• Calorimeters and showering
• Particle zoo and the Standard Model
• Tour of high-energy particle accelerators

Curriculum Topics Available
Preparing detectors to take to your schools, exper
imental techniques
Learning the physics of cosmic rays
and particle detectors
What we expect to accomplish in 4 weeks
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Incident light from scintillator
Photomultiplier Tubes
Photocathode
Schematic drawing of a photomultiplier tube
Photons eject electrons via photoelectric effect
Each incident electron ejects about 4
new electrons at each dynode stage
Vacuum inside tube
An applied voltage difference between dynodes
makes electrons accelerate from stage to stage
Multiplied signal comes out here
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CROP teachers and students gain valuable hands-on
experience in bona fide research
Participants learn oscilloscope use and build
electronics
Students refurbish and assemble their
own detectors before installing them at school
Marian High Schools measurement of cosmic ray
rate vs. barometric pressure
Students present results in conference-style
meetings at UNL
Number of cosmic rays detected
Student team at Lincolns Zoo School with their
detectors
Increasing barometric pressure
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Endless scraping, polishing, and soldering
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Endless wrapping, taping, and observing
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Endless cabling and adjusting
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Pre-workshop and Post-workshop testing
Positive outcomes-assessment results from
professional evaluator
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Detectors in a vertical telescope Mini-experime
nts

• Coincidence rate vs. barometric
• pressure
• Day-night variation of cosmic
• ray rate
• Coincidence rate vs. angle of
• incidence
• Coincidence rate vs. vertical
• separation

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Electronics Configuration for Telescope
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Detector set-ups at schools
Telescope set-ups for indoor experiments
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Marian High Schools Measurement of Cosmic Ray
Rate vs. Barometric Pressure

• Statistical error bars shown
• 1.3 decrease per mmHg

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Mount Michael High School The Science Teacher,
November 2001
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CROP data acquisition electronics card
Developed by Univ. Nebraska, Fermilab (Quarknet),
Univ. Washington
Programmable logic device
Time-to-digital converters
To PC serial port
GPS receiver input
Four analog PMT inputs
5 Volt DC power

• 43 Mhz (24 nsec) clock interpolates
• between 1 pps GPS ticks for trigger time
• TDCs give relative times of 4 inputs with
• 75 psec resolution

Discriminator threshold adjust
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User-friendly, LabView-based control and
monitoring GUI
Event counter
Elapsed run time
Two detectors firing at the same time
Data stream for each event
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Students familiarizing themselves with
data-acquisition card and PC
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Students familiarizing themselves with
data-acquisition card and PC
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Rooftop mini-experiments for CROP Schools

• With counters spread out in horizontal plane
• 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 coincidence rates vs. detector
• separation
• Different configurations (square, triangle
• as shown)
• Optimization of counter geometry on
• school rooftop
• Singles rates vs. rainfall
• Simultaneous data taking with other schools

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1
1
2
2
3
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Coincidence Rates vs. Separation
Experiment October December 2002
4 detectors on corners of a square 15 meter (45
feet) separation shown
Installation on Physics Department roof,
February 2002
15 m
15 m
15 m
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4-fold Coincidence Ratesvs. Separation
Rates high enough to sustain student interest
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Presently taking data simultaneously at 3 sites
Lincoln High School rooftop

• 21 schools received data-acquisition cards
• at September 27 meeting at UNL
• All schools start taking data this semester

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NALTA The North American Large-Scale
Time-Coincidence Array
CROP
SCROD
SALTA
WALTA
ALTA

• http//csr.phys.ualberta.ca/nalta/
• Includes links to individual project
• Web pages

Pierre Auger northern hemisphere site in Utah
CHICOS
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SALTA Snowmass Area Large Time-Coincidence Array
Initiated during Snowmass 2001 Future of HEP
Conference

• Colorado
• Aspen High School, Aspen, CO
• Basalt High School, Basalt, CO
• Roaring Fork Valley High School,
• Carbondale, CO
• Lake County High School,
• Leadville, CO
• The highest-elevation school
• in the U.S. -- 10,152 feet ASL
• Illinois
• Wheaton North High School,
• Wheaton, IL

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Replica of Hess Electroscope
Portable Geiger Counters
Wilkes in Hessian Outfit
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Crowd gathers to watch Victor Hess flight
reenactment
Lift off !
Unicorn Balloon Company, Snowmass, CO
Data transmitted live to ground via radio
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• Two flights with consistent
• results
• Hovered at 1000 ft increments
• in altitude for 5 minutes
• Cosmic ray rates measured
• with portable Geiger counters
• Same effects observed
• by Victor Hess
• See FermiNews, July 27, 2001

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The Washington-Area Large-Scale Time-Coincidence
Array
http//www.phys.washington.edu/walta

• CROPs closest relative
• Run by University of Washington, Seattle
• Jeff Wilkes, et al.
• WALTA also uses refurbished CASA detectors

Seattle area map showing schools
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Los Angeles Area Schools
(Animation by L.A. school teacher)

• Institutions
• LA area schools
• California Institute of Technology
• California State University, Northridge
• University of California, Irvine
• Funding
• Caltech
• NSF Nuclear Physics

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• 164 detector stations recovered
• 2 detectors per school foreseen
• About 39 schools in process
• of being outfitted

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Conclusions on CROP
CROP, in its 4th year, will soon reach a major
milestone Simultaneous data-taking at all
schools, offline searches for extensive air
shower coincidences Other emerging efforts
will enable the NALTA consortium to search for
very long-range correlations Curriculum,
hardware, software has been developed to
facilitate the start-up of new efforts
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QuarkNet continues to grow in the
U.S. http//quarknet.fnal.gov

• Nationwide program which links high energy
• physicists with teams of local high school
• physics teachers to engage in active research
• projects
• Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation
• and Department of Energy, project office at
• Fermilab
• In its 5th year, QuarkNet centers established in
• 29 states involving over 400 teachers and their
• students

U.S. QuarkNet sites

• Wide range of ongoing activities, examples
• Hardware CMS hadron calorimeter optical decoder
  units, PMT testing and database
• Analysis Using distilled Tevatron data, Z mass
  peak reconstruction, top quark decay kinematics
• Growing emphasis on local cosmic ray studies
  with various techniques scintillators, Geiger
• counters, proportional tubes
• Ongoing work to disseminate activities developed
  at a given site to all QuarkNet participants

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Some QuarkNet Activities
CMS phototube test setup (Univ. Iowa)
Extensive air shower array at University of
Washington
Counting cosmic ray muons on top of Sears Tower
in Chicago (Univ. Illinois, Chicago)
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CROP, QuarkNet, and many other U.S.
Education/Outreach programs are summarized in
the booklet Particle Physics Education
and Outreach 2001 Available at
http//www-ed.fnal.gov/hep/home.html
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Education/Outreach Committee of the American
Physical Societys Division of Particles and
Fields (formed 2003)

• Members Liz Simmons (chair), Michael Barnett,
  Marcela Carena,
• Judy Jackson, Harrison Prosper, Randy Ruchti, Jim
  Siegrist, Greg Snow
• Activities
• Feed info on EPO efforts to Interactions.org web
  site
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  coordinated by all HEP labs worldwide
• Advocate for EPO plenary talks at future DPF
  meetings to educate wider
• community and get more people involved
• Coordinate widely dispersed EPO efforts of each
  HEP experiment to
• establish communication, avoid duplication of
  materials and activities
• development
• Provide guidance and best practices to
  investigators writing the
• now-required EPO part of their NSF and DoE base
  funding proposals
• Contribute to planning of U.S. activities in
  2005 World Year of Physics

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World Year of Physics 2005in the United States

• Einstein in the 21st Century

• Planned Projects
• Poster Contest Interactive Website
• PhysicsQuest Public Lectures
• Physics on the Road APS Meeting Events
• Distributed Computing Project

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Planned Projects Poster Contest
Nationwide poster contest aimed at U.S.
5th graders (generally aged 10). There are
4,000,000 U.S. students. Theme Einstein in
Everyday Life contest instructions will be
accompanied by lessons and activities that fit in
with national science and history guidelines for
U.S. 5th graders. Winning poster nationwide
will be made into a promotional poster for
WYP2005 distributed to U.S. schools.
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Planned Projects PhysicsQuest
Fictional physics mystery aimed at U.S.
middle school students (generally aged 11-13).
There are 12,000,000 such students. Students
will receive an evidence kit they will use to
solve the mystery. Clues will be available
online. Involves students in the process of
using science to solve problems.
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Planned Projects Physics on the Road
Branding existing traveling programs usually
run by university/college physics department
personnel (approximately 25 programs). Some are
demonstration based, others are hands-on
experiments that travel to primary and secondary
schools exposing the students to physics.
Developing one or two 2005-related physics demos
to be used by all POTR teams.
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Planned Projects Interactive Website http//www.p
hysics2005.org
Website will include Searchable database of
Nationwide events Kits on how to plan your own
2005 event Puzzles and activities for teachers
and students Contest information (Poster
contest, PhysicsQuest and others)
Einstein History in collaboration with AIPs
Center for the History of Physics
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Planned Projects Public Lectures
We will encourage physics departments across
the country to host public lectures focusing on
physics. Our Topical Group on Gravitation can
help us create a

Speakers List for physics departments to use.
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Planned Projects APS Meeting Events
The American Physical Society has 20
national, topical and regional meetings
annually. We plan to have special
exhibits/displays at many of the APS meetings.
Larger meetings could have special Physics
Expositions designed especially for the public.
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Planned Projects Distributed Computing Project
A grass-roots, distributed computing search
that would be similar to SETI_at_home screen-saver,
which utilizes CPU time of idle computers to
analyze radio antennae data for signs of
extra-terrestrial life. In this project,
participants would aid in the search for
gravitational wave signals in data collected by
the LIGO Observatory.
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Collaborations
Although the American Physical Society is
spearheading the U.S. efforts to celebrate the
World Year of Physics, it is collaborating with
many other organizations. American Association
of Physics Teachers American Institute of
Physics Society of Physics Students National
Science Foundation U.S. Department of Energy
NASA U.S. Science Museums
Vinaya K. Sathyasheelappa U.S. WYP2005 Project
Coordinator physics2005_at_aps.org [phone]