Studies for high energy air shower identification using RF measurements with the ASTRONEU array

¹ Department of Financial and Management Engineering, University of the Aegean, Chios, Greece
² Physics Laboratory, School of Science and Technology, Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece
³ Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

^* e-mail: snonis@aegean.gr

Published online: 17 May 2019

Abstract

The Hellenic Open University (HOU) Cosmic Ray Telescope (ASTRONEU) consists of 9 large scintillator detectors and 3 RF antennas arranged in three autonomous stations operating at the Hellenic Open University campus in the city of Patras. High energy showers that are detected simultaneously by two distant stations and in coincidence with the RF antennas are used to study the RF signature of cosmic events. In previous studies we have shown that the timing of the RF signals as well as the measured electric field at the antennas position are in very good agreement with the simulation predictions. In this work we concentrate on the transfer functions of the antennas which are strongly frequency and angular dependent. We show that the RF spectra (at frequencies 30-80 MHz) of the detected showers are exhibiting features of the antenna response as predicted by detailed Monte Carlo simulation suggesting that a single antenna RF spectrum gives access to the cosmic ray arrival direction.