Paul Bach with Corbin Covault

Stability Testing of GPS Units Used for the Pierre Auger Project

When high energy cosmic rays strike the Earth’s atmosphere, they trigger a shower of particles detectable on the ground. Detecting these showers is the focus of the Auger Observatory, 1600 detectors being built in 3000 square kilometers of Argentina. A shower nearly simultaneously triggers several detectors spread over a large distance and the slight differences in arrival time at each detector indicate the direction of the shower’s origin. The arrival times are determined by using Global Positioning System signals; CWRU has been responsible for testing this GPS equipment. Although this equipment has been tested in the lab to Auger standards, there is a question of the equipment’s long term stability and behavior in the field. It would be useful to characterize likely failure modes of the GPS equipment that Auger may encounter by stressing receivers in the lab to failure and investigating the field performance of installed receivers at the observatory.