hjdh Andrea Misner Astrophysics Student Member of “Team Butler” Supervisor: Dr. Malcolm Butler From Cosmic Rays to Local Classrooms High School Physics How CORSIKA is Shaking Up

Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 1 Outline High-Energy Particles and Air Showers CORSIKA Methods and Results An Educational Idea When Ideas become Reality: Cosmic Rays In The Classroom Educational Benefits Future Endeavors

Cosmic Rays Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 2 Cosmic Rays are ultra-high energy particles, consisting of mostly charged electrons and protons Energies of Cosmic Rays can reach eV (~16J) Energies of particle accelerators can reach eV (~10 -7 J) The most energetic ones can move at % of the speed of light

Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 3 Air Showers Air showers occur when a high energy particle strikes the top of the Earth’s atmosphere Interested in the particles that survive to the observation level…Muons!

Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 4 Extensive Air Showers

Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 5 CORSIKA (COsmic Ray SImulations for KAscade) A Monte Carlo Code to Simulate Extensive Air Showers Code Created by Dr. Heck, J. Knapp, J.N. Capdevielle, G. Schatz and T. Thouw at Karlsruhe, Germany Primary particles can be protons, light nuclei, and or photons in the code Particles are tracked through the atmosphere as they decay into unstable secondaries Applies a random seed generator to vary the output data

Goals Create visual and graphical representations of the particles at the observation level Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 6 Produce semi-log plots with slopes that correspond to their energies Learn the physics of a cosmic ray air shower for ourselves

7 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University Methods Output the run_DAT0000## binary files Decoded the fort.8 files and learned the data structure   New corsikaread.f program and found the compressed muon data at the observation level of cm above sea level

8 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University Methods Continued… Modify and create new IDL and FORTRAN programs to further decode and plot the muon data 10 2, 10 3, 10 4, 10 5, 10 6, 10 7 and GeV runs with six runs per file

Results Continued… 10 5 GeV 10 6 GeV 9

10 5 GeV 10

Slope Equation: Y(x) = exp(P(0) + P(1)*X) Blank out 10 5 GeV 11

12 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University P(1) = e e-03 1x10 4 GeV

13 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University P(1) = e e-03 1x10 5 GeV

14 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University P(1) = e e-03 1x10 6 GeV

15 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 1x10 7 GeV P(1) = e e-04

16 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University

An Educational Idea 1991 Dr. Pinfold created ALTA (Alberta Large Area Time coincidence Array) and linked it with High Schools High Schools are given a detector, and use a website as a guide 17 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University All around the world… HISPARC (High School Project on Astrophysics Research with Cosmics) NALTA (North America Large Area Time Coincidence Array)

18 Cosmic Rays in the Classroom Program Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University Online program worked into the student’s curriculum Local high schools would receive a Cosmic Ray detector and use a website as a guide Purpose: To engage high-school students in particle research

Educational Benefits Students partake in the study of the most energetic particles ever seen 19 Cost efficient for High Schools - Detectors are low maintenance and compact - Computers are in most classrooms today, making the online program easily accessible Students get a chance to learn some cutting-edge science

Setup first school detector at Prince Andrew High School Continuing the networking with local high schools on the Imperial Oil Cosmic Rays in the Classroom Project Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 20 Future Endeavors Probe deeper into CORSIKA and cosmic ray physics, creating more visual representations of air showers

Supervisor: Dr. Malcolm Butler 21 Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University the Team Members: Jesse Maclean ggIan McLeod and Nigel Ribeiro (Co-op students)

Andrea Misner Saint Mary’s University 22 Questions? hjdh Where’s Your Classroom?