The most important involvement of the department is our participation in the world largest detection system of cosmic rays - the Pierre Auger Observatory. This apparatus measures cosmic ray showers, which develop in the atmosphere as a result of an interaction of a cosmic ray particle coming from the universe with atomic nuclei of air gases. The energy of primary cosmic ray particles exceeds by many orders of magnitude the energy limit of human-made accelerators.
The department staff is involved in the operation of the fluorescence telescopes, the data analysis and the atmospheric monitoring that is essential for an unbiased shower reconstruction. Scientists in the department attempt to understand, how the properties of hadronic interactions taking place during the shower development influence the shower properties, and which sources and processes are responsible for an origin of high-energy cosmic particles, and how these particles propagate through the universe to the Earth.
Other activities of the department concern the measurement of the fluorescence yield in air, which is crucial for precise energy reconstruction in fluorescence detectors, and the participation in the pioneering project attempting to detect cosmic ray showers at gigahertz frequencies. Furthermore, we also participate in the project of the largest survey telescope LSST, where the determination of properties of dark energy and dark matter is between the most important goals of this experiment.
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