119638891
Delayed energetic events in extensive air showers
Production of massive (> or =10 GeV/c/sup 2/) strongly interacting particles in very-high-energy interactions has been suggested by many theories. These particles, if produced in the cores of extensive air showers in the upper atmosphere, would arrive at the observational level delayed by tens of nanoseconds relative to all other known particles of similar energy, provided they are relatively stable (lifetime >10/sup -6/ s). Experiments searching for such particles have reported observing delayed (>20 ns) energetic (>40 GeV) events. However several anomalous features observed for these events have precluded their interpretation in terms of massive particles with ordinary hadronic interaction characteristics in a conclusive manner. We report here the details of a new experiment carried out at the Ooty laboratory during 1978--1981 where we have attempted to study the delayed energetic events with a multidetector system placed inside the large Ooty multiplate cloud chamber. Our observations show that the delayed energetic events could not be ascribed to high-energy hadronlike interactions of a massive strongly interacting particle. We have observed one delayed event showing a high-energy cascade in cloud chamber but inadequate timing information does not make a convincing case for this event to be due to a high-energy delayed massivemore » hadron. However this event combined with observation of two similar events earlier by Tonwar et al. suggest the existence of some interesting phenomenon requiring observations over a long period of time. We have obtained a 99% C.L. upper limit of 1.7 x 10/sup -11/ cm/sup -2/ s/sup -1/ sr/sup -1/ for the flux of massive particles in extensive air showers of size approx.(5 x 10/sup 4/)--(5 x 10/sup 6/) particles which corresponds to an upper limit of 2.5 x 10/sup -33/ cm/sup 2/ for the production cross section for particles of mass >10 GeV/c/sup 2/ at energies of approx.10/sup 5/--10/sup 7/ GeV.« less
67815721
The angular resolution of the GRAPES-3 array from the shadows of the Moon and the Sun
Abstract The absence of a well established point source of very high energy ( ≳ 10 TeV ) γ-rays in the sky, makes the measurement of the angular resolution and the absolute pointing accuracy of an extensive air shower (EAS) array a challenging task. In the past, several groups have utilized the reduction in the isotropic flux of cosmic rays due to the shadows of the Moon and the Sun, to measure the angular resolution and the absolute pointing accuracy of their arrays. The data collected from the GRAPES-3 EAS array, over the period of 4 years from 2000 to 2003, has been used to observe the shadow of the Moon at a level of ∼ 5 σ and that of the Sun at a lower level of significance. The high density of the detectors in GRAPES-3 enabled an angular resolution of 0.7° to be obtained at energies as low as 30 TeV. The angular resolution studies were further extended by using two other techniques, namely, the even–odd and the left–right methods. All three techniques have yielded nearly identical results on the energy dependent angular resolution.
119032709
Emission of Radiation at Energies > 1014 eV: Binary X-Ray Sources SCO X-1, CYG X-1, HER X-1 and Others
121254838
Sporadic emission of ultra high energy gamma rays from Crab pulsar
In a further study of sporadic emission from pulsars we find evidence for short lived intense emission from the Crab pulsar.
55926788
A large area muon tracking detector for ultra-high energy cosmic ray astrophysics — the GRAPES-3 experiment
Certain aspects of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic ray astrophysics require correlated studies on the electron and muon components of air showers, namely, the search for cosmic ray sources through g-ray astronomy and studies on the variation of the nuclear composition of primary cosmic rays with energy. While studies on the electron component provide basic information about the arrival direction and energy, it is the muon component that plays a crucial role in distinguishing primary g-rays from charged cosmic ray particles and in determining the composition. A large area (560m), tracking muon detector of the GRAPES-3 experiment, operating at Ooty in southern India, has been designed for detailed studies on both of these aspects of UHE cosmic ray astrophysics. We present here the details of the muon detector, associated electronics and the data acquisition system. A brief discussion of the potential of the muon detector is presented through simulation studies. r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 98.70.Sa; 96.40.Pq; 96.40.De; 98.70.Rz; 95.55.Vj; 13.85.Tp
55612742
Recent results from the GRAPES-3 experiment
The GRAPES-3 is a dense extensive air shower array operating with ~400 scintillator detectors and a 560 m 2 large tracking muon detector (E μ > 1 GeV), at Ooty in India. The muon detector has been used to observe acceleration of muons during thunderstorm conditions. The muon multiplicity distribution of the EAS is used to probe the composition of primary cosmic rays below 1 PeV, with an overlap with direct measurements. More recently we have explored the possibility of using the angular distribution of >1 GeV muons to identify the best from among several low- and high-energy hadronic interaction models. We have major expansion plans to enhance the sensitivity of the GRAPES-3 experiment in all of the areas listed above.
122594393
Minijets and associated production of photons and muons in high energy heavy ion collisions
Due to the large hadronic multiplicities involved in heavy ion collisions at LHC energies, production of photons and muons inside jets cannot be distinguished from production in isolation. Associated production rates for photons and muons in minijets are estimated. It is found that the muon cross section per uranium-uranium collision could be substantial.
5816018
Variational principle model for the nuclear caloric curve
Following the lead of a recent work, I perform a variational principle model calculation for the nuclear caloric curve. A Skyrme-type interaction with and without momentum dependence is used. The calculation is done for a large nucleus, i.e., in the nuclear matter limit. Thus I address the issue of volume fragmentation only. Nonetheless, the results are similar to the previous, largely phenomenological calculation for a finite nucleus. I find that the onset of fragmentation can be sudden as a function of temperature or excitation energy.
119206892
Strange freezeout
We argue that known systematics of hadron cross sections may cause different particles to freeze out of the fireball produced in heavy-ion collisions at different times. We find that a simple model with two freezeout points is a better description of data than that with a single freezeout, while still remaining predictive. The resulting fits seem to present constraints on the late stage evolution of the fireball, including the tantalizing possibility that the QCD chiral transition influences the yields at √
119032825
Search for UHE emission from 4U0115+63
We report here the preliminary results of our observations of the sporadic X‐binary system 4U0115+63. The CYGNUS air shower array has been collecting data since April 1986. No significant excess is seen from the direction of this source, nor any correlation with its 24‐day orbital period. A 90% confidence‐level upper limit on the flux from 4U0115+63 is 2.8×10−13 cm−2 s−1 above 50 TeV. This flux limit is considerably lower than those reported by other UHE experiments. Search for periodicity at the neutron star frequency is in progress.
118402302
Superfield approach to nilpotent symmetries in 3D Jackiw-Pi model of massive non-Abelian theory
In the available literature, only the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetries are known for the Jackiw-Pi model of the three (2 + 1)-dimensional (3D) massive non-Abelian gauge theory. We derive the off-shell nilpotent (s_{(a)b}^2 = 0) and absolutely anticommuting (s_b \,s_{ab} + s_{ab}\, s_b = 0) (anti-)BRST transformations s_{(a)b} corresponding to the usual Yang-Mills gauge transformations of this model by exploiting the "augmented" superfield formalism where the horizontality condition and gauge invariant restrictions blend together in a meaningful manner. There is a non-Yang-Mills (NYM) symmetry in this theory, too. However, we do not touch the NYM symmetry in our present endeavor. This superfield formalism leads to the derivation of an (anti-)BRST invariant Curci-Ferrari restriction which plays a key role in the proof of absolute anticommutativity of s_{(a)b}. The derivation of the proper anti-BRST symmetry transformations is important from the point of view of geometrical objects called gerbes. A novel feature of our present investigation is the derivation of the (anti-)BRST transformations for the auxiliary field \rho from our superfield formalism which is neither generated by the (anti-)BRST charges nor obtained from the requirements of nilpotency and/or absolute anticommutativity of the (anti-)BRST symmetries for our present 3D non-Abelian 1-form gauge theory.