The JEM-EUSO mission: An introduction

Year: 2015

Authors: The JEM-EUSO Collaboration Adams, J.H. Jr., Ahmad S., Albert J.-N., Allard D., Anchordoqui L., Andreev V., Anzalone A., Arai Y., Asano K., Ave Pernas M., Baragatti P., Barrillon P., Batsch T., Bayer J., Bechini R., Belenguer T., Bellotti R., Belov K., Berlind A.A., Bertaina M., Biermann P.L., Biktemerova S., Blaksley C., Blanc N., Bl?cki J., Blin-Bondil S., Blümer J., Bobik P., Bogomilov M., Bonamente M., Briggs M.S., Briz S., Bruno A., Cafagna F., Campana D., Capdevielle J.-N., Caruso R., Casolino M., Cassardo C., Castellini G., Catalano C., Catalano O., Cellino A., Chikawa M., Christl M.J., Cline D., Connaughton V., Conti L., Cordero G., Crawford H.J., Cremonini R., Csorna S., Dagoret-Campagne S., de Castro A.J., De Donato C., de la Taille C., De Santis C., del Peral L., Dell’Oro A., De Simone N., Di Martino M., Distratis G., Dulucq F., Dupieux M., Ebersoldt A., Ebisuzaki T., Engel R., Falk S., Fang K., Fenu F., Fernández-Gómez I., Ferrarese S., Finco D., Flamini M., Fornaro C., Franceschi A., Fujimoto J., Fukushima M., Galeotti P., Garipov G., Geary J., Gelmini G., Giraudo G., Gonchar M., González Alvarado C., Gorodetzky P., Guarino F., Guzmán A., Hachisu Y., Harlov B., Haungs A., Hernández Carretero J., Higashide K., Ikeda D., Ikeda H., Inoue N., Inoue S., Insolia A., Isgrň F., Itow Y., Joven E., Judd E.G., Jung A., Kajino F., Kajino T., Kaneko I., Karadzhov Y., Karczmarczyk J., Karus M., Katahira K., Kawai K., Kawasaki Y., Keilhauer B., Khrenov B.A., Kim J.-S., Kim S.-W., Kim S.-W., Kleifges M., Klimov P.A., Kolev D., Kreykenbohm I., Kudela K., Kurihara Y., Kusenko A., Kuznetsov E., Lacombe M., Lachaud C., Lee J., Licandro J., Lim H., López F., Maccarone M.C., Mannheim K., Maravilla D., Marcelli L., Marini A., Martinez O., Masciantonio G., Mase K., Matev R., Medina-Tanco G., Mernik T., Miyamoto H., Miyazaki Y., Mizumoto Y., Modestino G., Monaco A., Monnier-Ragaigne D., Morales de los Ríos J.A., Moretto C., Morozenko V.S., Mot B., Murakami T., Nagano M., Nagata M., Nagataki S., Nakamura T., Napolitano T., Naumov D., Nava R., Neronov A., Nomoto K., Nonaka T., Ogawa T., Ogio S., Ohmori H., Olinto A.V., Orleanski P., Osteria G., Panasyuk M.I., Parizot E., Park I.H., Park H.W., Pastircak B., Patzak T., Paul T., Pennypacker C., Perez Cano S., Peter T., Picozza P., Pierog T., Piotrowski L.W., Piraino S., Plebaniak Z., Pollini A., Prat P., Prévôt G., Prieto H., Putis M., Reardon P., Reyes M., Ricci M., Rodríguez I., Frías M.D.R., Ronga F., Roth M., Rothkaehl H., Roudil G., Rusinov I., Rybczynski M., Sabau M.D., Sáez Cano G., Sagawa H., Saito A., Sakaki N., Sakata M., Salazar H., Sánchez S., Santangelo A., Santiago Crúz L., Sanz Palomino M., Saprykin O., Sarazin F., Sato H., Sato M., Schanz T., Schieler H., Scotti V., Segreto A., Selmane S., Semikoz D., Serra M., Sharakin S., Shibata T., Shimizu H.M., Shinozaki K., Shirahama T., Siemieniec-Ozi?blo G., Silva López H.H., Sledd J., Slominska K., Sobey A., Sugiyama T., Supanitsky D., Suzuki M., Szabelska B., Szabelski J., Tajima F., Tajima N., Tajima T., Takahashi Y., Takami H., Takeda M., Takizawa Y., Tenzer C., Tibolla O., Tkachev L., Tokuno H., Tomida T., Tone N., Toscano S., Trillaud F., Tsenov R., Tsunesada Y., Tsuno K., Tymieniecka T., Uchihori Y., Unger M., Vaduvescu O., Valdés-Galicia J.F., Vallania P., Valore L., Vankova G., Vigorito C., Villaseńor L., von Ballmoos P., Wada S., Watanabe J., Watanabe S., Watts J., Jr. Weber, M. Weiler, T.J. Wibig, T. Wiencke, L. Wille, M. Wilms, J. Wlodarczyk, Z. Yamamoto, T. Yamamoto, Y. Yang, J. Yano, H. Yashin, I.V. Yonetoku, D. Yoshida, K. Yoshida, S. Young, R. Zotov, M.Y. Zuccaro Marchi, A.

Autors Affiliation: St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria; LAL, Univ Paris-Sud, CNRS/IN2P3, Orsay, France; Omega, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS/IN2P3, Palaiseau, France; APC, Univ Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA/Irfu, Obs. de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, France; IRAP, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, Toulouse, France; ECAP, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany; Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany; Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany; Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Kepler CenterUniversity of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany; Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Sezione di Bari, Sezione di Bari, Italy; Universita’ degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro and INFN – Sezione di Bari, Sezione di Bari, Italy; Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia -, Universita’ di Catania, Catania, Italy; Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) – Ist. di Fisica Applicata Nello Carrara, Firenze, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy; Universita’ di Napoli Federico II – Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Napoli Federico II, Italy; INAF – Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica di Palermo, Palermo, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma Tor Vergata, Italy; Universita’ di Roma Tor Vergata – Dipartimento di Fisica, Roma, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Sezione di Torino, Torino, Italy; Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita’ di Torino, Torino, Italy; Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Astrofisica, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy; UTIU, Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Rome, Italy; DIETI, Universita’ degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy; Chiba University, Chiba, Japan; National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Chiba, Japan; Fukui University of Technology, Fukui, Japan; Kinki University, Higashi-Osaka, Japan; Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan; Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan; Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan; Kobe University, Kobe, Japan; Konan University, Kobe, Japan; Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan; Yukawa Institute, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan; National Astronomical Observatory, Mitaka, Japan; Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan; Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan; Graduate School of Science, Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan; Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/JAXA, Sagamihara, Japan; Aoyama Gakuin University, Sagamihara, Japan; Saitama University, Saitama, Japan; Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan; Interactive Research Center of Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan; University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba, Japan; RIKEN, Wako, Japan; Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), Daejeon, South Korea; Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea; Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea; Center for Galaxy Evolution Research, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea; Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico, Mexico; Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo (UMSNH), Morelia, Mexico; Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), Puebla, Mexico; Jan Kochanowski University, Institute of Physics, Kielce, Poland; Jagiellonian University, Astronomical Observatory, Krakow, Poland; National Centre for Nuclear Research, Lodz, Poland; Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CBK), Warsaw, Poland; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russian Federation; Central Research Institute of Machine Building, TsNIIMash, Korolev, Russian Federation; Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Lomonosov Moscow, Russian Federation; Institute of Experimental Physics, Kosice, Slovakia; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain; Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), Madrid, Spain; Universidad de Alcalá (UAH), Madrid, Spain; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Tenerife, Spain; Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), Neuchâtel, Switzerland; ISDC Data Centre for Astrophysics, Versoix, Switzerland; Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Switzerland; Space Science Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, United States; University of Chicago, Chicago, United States; Colorado School of Mines, Golden, United States; University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, United States; University of California (UCLA), Los Angeles, United States; University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, United States; NASA – Marshall Space Flight Center, Marshall, United States; Vanderbilt University, Nashville, United States; EUSO Team, Global Research Cluster, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, 351-0198, Japan

Abstract: The Extreme Universe Space Observatory on board the Japanese Experiment Module of the International Space Station, JEM-EUSO, is being designed to search from space ultra-high energy cosmic rays. These are charged particles with energies from a few 10 19 eV to beyond 10 20 eV, at the very end of the known cosmic ray energy spectrum. JEM-EUSO will also search for extreme energy neutrinos, photons, and exotic particles, providing a unique opportunity to explore largely unknown phenomena in our Universe. The mission, principally based on a wide field of view (60 degrees) near-UV telescope with a diameter of ~ 2.5 m, will monitor the earth’s atmosphere at night, pioneering the observation from space of the ultraviolet tracks (290-430 nm) associated with giant extensive air showers produced by ultra-high energy primaries propagating in the earth’s atmosphere. Observing from an orbital altitude of ~ 400 km, the mission is expected to reach an instantaneous geometrical aperture of A geo = 2 × 10 5 km 2 sr with an estimated duty cycle of ~ 20 %. Such a geometrical aperture allows unprecedented exposures, significantly larger than can be obtained with ground-based experiments. In this paper we briefly review the history of space-based search for ultra-high energy cosmic rays. We then introduce the special issue of Experimental Astronomy devoted to the various aspects of such a challenging enterprise. We also summarise the activities of the on-going JEM-EUSO program.

Journal/Review: EXPERIMENTAL ASTRONOMY (PRINT)

Volume: 40 (1)      Pages from: 3  to: 17

KeyWords: Neutrinos; Ultra-high energy cosmic rays
DOI: 10.1007/s10686-015-9482-x