Dylan Markovic with Corbin Covault

Fabrication and Deployment of Cosmic Ray Detector Systems

(started in fall 2009 and will be resumed and completed in spring 2011)

When a cosmic ray interacts with the atmosphere of Earth, particles from the cosmic ray emit Cherenkov radiation. The main interests of the radiation in this experiment are the rates and amplitudes of this emitted light and ultimately determining the quantity of Cherenkov particles per meter and the composition of these particles. In order to study these interests four counters will be constructed using a photomultiplier tube (PMT) attached to a scintillation panel for each counter along with coincidence electronics and the main Cherenkov light detector PMT. This detector will be deployed to collect data on the Cherenkov radiation and compared against computer simulations.