G. Bencivenni

A modular design for glass spark counters

Abstract In this paper a fully redesigned glass spark counter is described. The detector exhibits noiseless operation and a time resolution less than 1 ns. The performance makes this detector a good candidate for large area cosmic ray experiments. The simple assembling procedure allows large sensitive area at low cost.

A multigap resistive plate chamber array for the Extreme Energy Events project

The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is a Centro Fermi - CERN - INFN - MIUR Collaboration Project for the study of extremely high energy cosmic rays, which exploits the Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) technology. The excellent time resolution and good tracking capability of this kind of detector allows us to study Extensive Air Showers (EAS) with an array of MRPC telescopes distributed across the Italian territory. Each telescope is installed in a high school, with the further goal to introduce students to particle and astroparticle Physics. The status of the experiment and the results obtained are reported.

The EEE Project: cosmic rays, multigap resistive plate chambers and high school students

The Extreme Energy Events Project has been designed to join the scientific interest of a cosmic rays physics experiment with the enormous didactic potentiality deriving from letting it be carried out by high school students and teachers. After the initial phase, the experiment is starting to take data continuously, and the first interesting physics results have been obtained, demonstrating the validity of the idea of running a real physics investigation in these peculiar conditions. Here an overview of its structure and status is presented, together with some studies about detector performance and first physics results.

Recent results and performance of the multi-gap resistive plate chambers network for the EEE Project

The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is devoted to the study of Extensive Atmospheric Showers through a network of muon telescopes, installed in High Schools, with the further aim of introducing young students to particle and astroparticle physics. Each telescope is a tracking detector composed of three Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC) with an active area of 1.60 × 0.80m2. Their characteristics are similar to the ones built for the Time Of Flight array of the ALICE Experimentat LHC. The EEE Project started with a few pilot towns, where the telescopes have been taking data since 2008, and it has been constantly extended, reaching at present more than 50 MRPCs telescopes. They are spread across Italy with two additional stations at CERN, covering an area of around 3 × 105 km2, with a total surface area for all the MRPCs of 190m2. A comprehensive description of the MRPCs network is reported here: efficiency, time and spatial resolution measured using cosmic rays hitting the telescopes. The most recent results on the detector and physics performance from a series of coordinated data acquisition periods are also presented.

The EEE Project: Cosmic rays, multigap resistive plate chambers and high school students

The Extreme Energy Events Project has been designed to join the scientific interest of a cosmic rays physics experiment with the enormous didactic potentiality deriving from letting it be carried out by high school students and teachers. After the initial phase, the experiment is starting to take data continuously, and the first interesting physics results have been obtained, demonstrating the validity of the idea of running a real physics investigation in these peculiar conditions. Here an overview of its structure and status is presented, together with some studies about detector performance and first physics results.

The EEE Project: a sparse array of telescopes for the measurement of cosmic ray muons

The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is meant to be the most extensive experiment to detect secondary cosmic particles in Italy. To this aim, more than 50 telescopes have been built at CERN and installed in high schools distributed all over the Italian territory. Each EEE telescope comprises three large area Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPCs) and is capable of reconstructing the trajectories of the charged particles traversing it with a good angular resolution. The excellent performance of the EEE telescopes allows a large variety of studies, from measuring the local muon flux in a single telescope, to detecting extensive air showers producing time correlations in the same metropolitan area, to searching for large-scale correlations between showers detected in telescopes tens, hundreds or thousands of kilometers apart. In addition to its scientific goal, the EEE Project also has an educational and outreach objective, its aim being to motivate young people by involving them directly in a real experiment. High school students and teachers are involved in the construction, testing and start-up of the EEE telescope in their school, then in its maintenance and data-acquisition, and later in the analysis of the data. During the last couple of years a great boost has been given to the EEE Project through the organization of simultaneous and centralized data taking with the whole telescope array. The raw data from all telescopes are transferred to CNAF (Bologna), where they are reconstructed and stored. The data are currently being analyzed, looking at various topics: variation of the rate of cosmic muons with time, upward going muons, muon lifetime, search for anisotropies in the muon angular distribution and for time coincidences between stations. In this paper an overall description of the experiment is given, including the design, construction and performance of the telescopes. The operation of the whole array is also presented by showing the most recent physics results.

EEE - Extreme Energy Events: an astroparticle physics experiment in Italian High Schools

The Extreme Energy Events project (EEE) is aimed to study Extensive Air Showers (EAS) from primary cosmic rays of more than 1018 eV energy detecting the ground secondary muon component using an array of telescopes with high spatial and time resolution. The second goal of the EEE project is to involve High School teachers and students in this advanced research work and to initiate them in scientific culture: to reach both purposes the telescopes are located inside High School buildings and the detector construction, assembling and monitoring - together with data taking and analysis - are done by researchers from scientific institutions in close collaboration with them. At present there are 42 telescopes in just as many High Schools scattered all over Italy, islands included, plus two at CERN and three in INFN units. We report here some preliminary physics results from the first two common data taking periods together with the outreach impact of the project.

First detection of extensive air shower with the EEE experiment

The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) project is devoted to search extremely high energy cosmic rays, by means of an array of hodoscopes distributed over the italian territory. These stations are based on the use of Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC), that have excellent time resolution and good tracking capability. They are installed in selected secondary school institutes, where students are involved in the research work. In this article the analysis of the first extensive air shower detected is presented.

EEE project: Science in the schools

The EEE (extreme energy event) project will study extensive air showers through the detection of the muon component by means of a network of tracking detectors, installed inside high schools distributed all over Italy. Projects aim is to involve teachers and students in a frontier cosmic ray experiment, as well. The EEE telescope is based on a large but simplified and cheap version of the detector designed for the time of flight measurements (TOF) of the ALICE experiment at LHC: 3 large (~2 m2) multi-gap resistive plate chambers (MRPC), built at CERN by high school students and teachers, which contribute directly to the full operation of the telescope. Using multiple small gas gaps combined with the use of high gain and fast gas mixture (Freon and SF6 based), the MRPCs show a time resolution of the order of 100 ps. Particle tracking is performed equipping MRPCs with 24 strips read, at both ends, by front-end electronics based on NINO ASIC and using commercial multi-hit TDCs. The two-dimensional information on the cosmic muon impact point is obtained by the hit strip, in one direction, and by the time difference of the signals arriving at the two strip ends in the other direction, thus providing space resolution of the order of 1 cm. By using the three impact points it is possible to reconstruct the direction of the crossing muon. The angular resolution obtained for the muon zenith angle is about 1deg. The GPS synchronization of the telescopes will open the way to search for coincidences. The school involvement in the Project started around 2003 with 7 pilot towns. The project, supported by the Ministero dellUniversita e della Ricerca (MIUR), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) and Museo Storico della Fisica e Centre Studi e Ricerche E. Fermi, has been conceived and lead by Prof. Antonino Zichichi.