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Research subjects at department 16

Cherenkov Telescope Array - Czech participation

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 whole text »

Pierre Auger Observatory - Cosmic rays of the highest energies

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.  The whole text »

LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope)

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 whole text »

Gigahertz emission caused by cosmic air shower

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 whole text »