https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20135308017
The Pierre Auger Research and Development Array (RDA) in southeastern Colorado – R&D for a giant ground array
1 Physics Department, Colorado School of Mines, Golden CO, USA
2 Observatorio Pierre Auger, 5613 Malargüe, Argentina
3 Laboratoire Astroparticules et Cosmologie (APC), Université Paris 7, CNRS-IN2P3, Paris, France
4 Institut de Physique Nucléaire d'Orsay (IPNO), Université Paris 11, CNRS-IN2P3, Orsay, France
5 Kernfysisch Versneller Instituut (KVI), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
6 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan Technological University, Houghton MI, USA
7 Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie (LPSC), Université Joseph Fourier, INPG, CNRS-IN2P3, Grenoble, France
8 Physics Division, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA
a e-mail: fsarazin@mines.edu
The Pierre Auger Research and Development Array (RDA) was originally designed to be the precursor of the northern Auger observatory, a hybrid array of 4400 surface detector stations and 39 fluorescence telescopes deployed over 20,000 square kilometers. It is conceived as a test bed aiming at validating an improved and more cost-effective 1-PMT surface detector design and a new peer-to-peer communication system. The array of ten surface detector stations and ten communication-only stations is currently being deployed in southeastern Colorado and will be operated at least until late 2013. It is configured in such a way that it allows testing of a new peer-to-peer communication protocol, as well as a new surface detector electronics design with a larger dynamic range aiming at reducing the distance from the shower core where saturation is observed. All these developments are expected in the short term to improve the performance of the Pierre Auger Observatory and enable future enhancements. In the longer term, it is hoped that some of these new developments may contribute to the design of a next-generation giant ground array.
For the full authorlist see Appendix “Collaborations” in this volume or http://www.auger.org/archive/authors_2012_06.html
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
