arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to S. Bartocci.
Compilation of papers presented by the JEM-EUSO Collaboration at the 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC), held on July 12-23, 2021 (online) in Berlin, Germany.
The High Energy Particle Detector (HEPD-02) is a payload of the second China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES-02), designed and built by the Italian Limadou collaboration. Its purpose is to detect cosmic rays and trapped particles of radiation belts, in the kinetic energy range 3-100 MeV for electrons, 30-200 MeV for protons. HEPD-02 is the first space detector to use a tracking detector based on Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS). The MAPS provides high spatial resolution, low noise, increased robustness, and low production costs. Operating MAPS in space presents a significant challenge due to strict power consumption requirements. To meet such constraints, a custom Tracker Data Acquisition (TDAQ) board and firmware have been designed and implemented, by using a commercial low-power Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). This paper addresses the design features of the TDAQ unit, enabling the tracking detector to be operated efficiently, with particular focus on the power consumption performance.
The Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super Pressure Balloon 1 (EUSO-SPB1) was launched in 2017 April from Wanaka, New Zealand. The plan of this mission of opportunity on a NASA super pressure balloon test flight was to circle the southern hemisphere. The primary scientific goal was to make the first observations of ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray extensive air showers (EASs) by looking down on the atmosphere with an ultraviolet (UV) fluorescence telescope from suborbital altitude (33~km). After 12~days and 4~hours aloft, the flight was terminated prematurely in the Pacific Ocean. Before the flight, the instrument was tested extensively in the West Desert of Utah, USA, with UV point sources and lasers. The test results indicated that the instrument had sensitivity to EASs of approximately 3 EeV. Simulations of the telescope system, telescope on time, and realized flight trajectory predicted an observation of about 1 event assuming clear sky conditions. The effects of high clouds were estimated to reduce this value by approximately a factor of 2. A manual search and a machine-learning-based search did not find any EAS signals in these data. Here we review the EUSO-SPB1 instrument and flight and the EAS search.
Compilation of papers presented by the JEM-EUSO Collaboration at the 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC), held July 24 through August 1, 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin.
EUSO-Balloon is a pathfinder mission for the Extreme Universe Space Observatory onboard the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM-EUSO). It was launched on the moonless night of the 25$^{th}$ of August 2014 from Timmins, Canada. The flight ended successfully after maintaining the target altitude of 38 km for five hours. One part of the mission was a 2.5 hour underflight using a helicopter equipped with three UV light sources (LED, xenon flasher and laser) to perform an inflight calibration and examine the detectors capability to measure tracks moving at the speed of light. We describe the helicopter laser system and details of the underflight as well as how the laser tracks were recorded and found in the data. These are the first recorded laser tracks measured from a fluorescence detector looking down on the atmosphere. Finally, we present a first reconstruction of the direction of the laser tracks relative to the detector.
On the wake of the results obtained so far at the SPARC\_LAB test-facility at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (Italy), we are currently investigating the possibility to design and build a new multi-disciplinary user-facility, equipped with a soft X-ray Free Electron Laser (FEL) driven by a $\sim$1 GeV high brightness linac based on plasma accelerator modules. This design study is performed in synergy with the EuPRAXIA design study. In this paper we report about the recent progresses in the on going design study of the new facility.