The goal of the CTA-Czech RI is to assure the participation of the Czech Republic in design, construction, operation and maintenance of a prestigious project of European and world astroparticle physics - CTA - Cherenkov Telescope Array. This comprises the involvement of the Czech Republic in organizational structures, expert panels as well as CTA scientific groups. CTA is the new generation observatory of high-energy gamma-rays belonging to ESFRI roadmap and it will allow the discovery of a large number of new astrophysical sources of gamma rays and determination of their characteristics. The Czech scientists and experts are actively involved in several CTA working groups. The goal is to enhance their further participation and to create the channel of long term scientific, financial and in-kind contributions of the Czech Republic to one of the most advanced international infrastructure in physics for the next decades. An important technological aspect to be kept in mind by the Czech team is the long history of Czech optics and glass in major astroparticle physics projects. The institute of Physics is responsible for the organization of the Czech CTA node. More at cta.fzu.cz
The apparatus measures the atmospheric showers produced by nuclear interactions of the primary cosmic
particle with air nuclei. The active involvement at this international Observatory with 17 participating countries and more than 50 institutions from all over the world is the major scientific topic of the department. For the first time the observatory combines two measurement techniques – that of surface array covering 3000 km2 of Argentinian pampa and of fluorescence telescopes. Thus the precision of the shower reconstruction is much better than in previous experiments. In close cooperation with Joint Laboratory of Optics of Palacky University and Institute of Physics, the scientific personnel of our department is involved in the construction and the operation of the fluorescence telescopes, in the analysis of the measured showers and also in the atmospheric monitoring. The last activity is necessary for successful unbiased shower reconstruction.
We operate robotic astronomical telescope FRAM that measures atmosphere transparency using immediate brightnesses of standard stars. Another traditional topic of the group is the study of nucleus-nucleus interactions in the shower development at energies far above of those available at current accelerators.
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The group is also involved in the international AIRFLY (AIR FLuorescence Yield) project. The goal of the AIRFLY experiment is to measure a crucial parameter for atmospheric shower (energy) reconstruction - a fluorescence yield in the air. The measurements are performed in Frascati (Italy), Argonne (USA) and at Fermilab (USA) in gas chambers with controlled thermodynamic conditions. The aim is to measure the yield as a function of atmospheric conditions (temperature, humidity and pressure) as well as to precisely determine the fluorescence spectrum.
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The aim of the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) project is to build the world largest wide-field survey telescope. The system with primary mirror of
8.4 m diameter, field of view of 10 deg squared and a 3.2 gigapixel CCD camera is expected to be finished in 2015. With these parameters the telescope
will be able to map the whole visible sky in mere 3 nights. During 10 years it will be able to take at least 300 pictures of each position on the sky
and thus to create a “movie of deep universe”. The full text >>
As it was shown only recently, electromagnetic waves are produced during the passage of cosmic ray shower in the atmosphere also at gigahertz frequencies, i.e. in the microwave range. The determination of the intensity of the emission is non trivial and dependent on the number of uncertainties, and thus it is still an open question, whether the effect can be used for the measurement of the longitudinal profiles of air showers, in the similar manner as the fluorescence light emission is already being used. The full text >>
The group is also involved in the international AIRFLY (AIR FLuorescence Yield) project. The goal of the AIRFLY experiment is to measure a crucial parameter for atmospheric shower (energy) reconstruction - a fluorescence yield in the air. The measurements are performed in Frascati (Italy), Argonne (USA) and at Fermilab (USA) in gas chambers with controlled thermodynamic conditions. The aim is to measure the yield as a function of atmospheric conditions (temperature, humidity and pressure) as well as to precisely determine the fluorescence spectrum.