• Open Access

Analytic calculation of radio emission from parametrized extensive air showers: A tool to extract shower parameters

O. Scholten, T. N. G. Trinh, K. D. de Vries, and B. M. Hare
Phys. Rev. D 97, 023005 – Published 10 January 2018

Abstract

The radio intensity and polarization footprint of a cosmic-ray induced extensive air shower is determined by the time-dependent structure of the current distribution residing in the plasma cloud at the shower front. In turn, the time dependence of the integrated charge-current distribution in the plasma cloud, the longitudinal shower structure, is determined by interesting physics which one would like to extract, such as the location and multiplicity of the primary cosmic-ray collision or the values of electric fields in the atmosphere during thunderstorms. To extract the structure of a shower from its footprint requires solving a complicated inverse problem. For this purpose we have developed a code that semianalytically calculates the radio footprint of an extensive air shower given an arbitrary longitudinal structure. This code can be used in an optimization procedure to extract the optimal longitudinal shower structure given a radio footprint. On the basis of air-shower universality we propose a simple parametrization of the structure of the plasma cloud. This parametrization is based on the results of Monte Carlo shower simulations. Deriving the parametrization also teaches which aspects of the plasma cloud are important for understanding the features seen in the radio-emission footprint. The calculated radio footprints are compared with microscopic CoREAS simulations.

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  • Received 15 September 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.023005

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

O. Scholten1,2,*, T. N. G. Trinh1,†, K. D. de Vries2, and B. M. Hare1

  • 1University of Groningen, KVI Center for Advanced Radiation Technology, Groningen, The Netherlands
  • 2Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Dienst ELEM, Brussels, Belgium

  • *scholten@kvi.nl
  • t.n.g.trinh@rug.nl

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Vol. 97, Iss. 2 — 15 January 2018

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