Group Theory & Particle Physics

Cosmic Rays Discovered

More than 100 years Ago !
Victor Hess ew on a Ballon 18000 feet
with a gold leaf electroscope (1912)

He noticed radiation decreases initially but

when he reached at height 5km it started
increasing

He concluded they are coming from outside

Repeated during Solar Eclipse : no reduction

in signal so not coming from Sun

Won Nobel Prize on 1936

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 Discovery of Antimatter
Anderson experimentally con rmed
existence of antimatter (1932). Dirac
earlier had predicted their
existence (1928) .

Track of Electron
Cloud Chamber
Paul Dirac
Nobel Prize 1933 Track of Positron

Carl Anderson
Nobel prize 1936 Before the inventions of particle accelerators, CRs and
their interactions were only source of information aboout
elementary particles

Natural Particle Collider

Muon, Pion, Kaon, Lambda

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Cosmic Rays : Beginning of Particle and Astro-particle Physics

d 2.7
/E
Isotropic, Atmosphere is opaque dx

Mostly composed of proton (90%)

Source of Origin not known

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 In the past only two fundamental forces were known -
Gravity - Newton
Electromagnetism - Maxwell
People had no idea that there could be other fundamental forces

Other fundamental forces e.g. strong forces or weak forces would

appear when particles are probed at short distances - that require extreme conditions - exists in
astrophysical objects - man made accelerators

Why people felt that they need to probe particles at shorter distances
1) Radioactivity , 2) why protons and neutrons stay together, 3) what protons and neutrons are
made of
Atomic Scale - 1eV - 10-10m
Nucleus - MeV - 10-15m
Quark - GeV - 10-18m

quarks never found free

in are in group
baryons - made up of 3 quarks
mesons - made up of 2 quarks
(quark & anti quark)
Unstable
 Quantum Fields
Theory of particle physics is not theory of parties but theory of elds -
a eld is uid like object present everywhere .. it takes di erent value at
di erent point is space

Quantum mechanics made it more interesting .. one consequence energy is

no longer smooth or continuous .. it is discrete.
EM waves made up of particles called photons. Thus all the forces mentioned earlier
has elds associated with it .. and when combined with QM, then ripples are
represented by particles
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 Implications of Quantum Fields

Implication 1 - eld theories allow us to write laws of physics consistent with locality; if you shake an
electron it will not immediately a ect a neighbouring electron.. however shaking electron produces
perturbations in EM eld that propagates and a ects the other electron

Implication 2 - all particles of a given type are exactly same

Implication 3 - The eld perspective allows us to simply interpret situations where the number of
particles changes

Implication 4 - Vacuum is an interesting place .. it is not nothing

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 Antimatter

Schrodinger Equation can not explain behaviour of

electrons in atoms as these electrons are relativistic

Quantum Mech. and General Theory of Relativity

two fundamental theory .. however there is nothing
that combines these two.
Paul Dirac managed to combined QM with Special
Relativity - anti-particle followed from there Solutions - negative Energy
and negative probability density
Matter and anti-matter when meet annihilate
into pure energy; produces force carriers gluons,
W/Z bosons, photons
Antimatter
Wilson Cloud Chamber
Cosmic Rays Spectrum

The energy density of Cosmic rays

in our galaxy 1 eV / cm3
energy density of stellar light
0.3 eV / cm3

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Cosmic Ray Composition

Upto 1015eV it is possible to

measure CR spectrum directly.

Above 1015eV indirect

measurements depends on Extensive
Air Showers produced in the
Atmosphere by Incident CR. Thus
Composition studies has big
uncertainties.

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 Cosmic Ray Abundance

Chemical composition of CRs similar to abundances of elements from the Sun -

indicates stellar origin

Some differences Li, Be, B (spallation of heavier elements by protons i.e. C & O).
And Sc, V Mn come from fragmentation of Fe - also known as secondary CRs .
Also anti-protons are produced when protons interact with inter-stellar gas.
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 Cosmic Ray Spallation

Amount of matter a CR propagates through

Also helps us to estimate CR lifetime

teff (effective thickness) = (4-6) g/cm2

(mass density) (md)intgal= 1 proton/ cm3 or

Spallation happens when accelerated 1.7X10-24 g/cm3

protons collide with C N O tcr (CR lifetime) = teff / [(md)intgal X c]

= 3X106 yrs

Enrichment of odd-A nuclei due to

CR lifetime can also be measured from
spallation. Stellar processes tend to
relative abundances of radiative
favour production of more stable even-A
isotopes produced by spallation
nuclei
 Origin of Cosmic Rays

For galactic halo (1 kpc) it appears

Max energy 1018 ev
For B 3 µG
Galactic Extra-Gal
A particle/nuclei with more energy
will escape

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 Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays
Greisen, Zatsepin and Kuzmin (GZK) Cut Off

At 1017 eV Pair production

At 1019 eV Proton photo-pion

production

For higher Nuclei (Fe)

photo-disintegration

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 Cosmic-Ray Detection
In Space & On Ground
100 km-2 yr-1 @ 1018eV
1 km-2 yr-1 @ 1019eV
1 km-2 century-1 @ 1020eV

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Ultra High Energy Cosmic-Rays (UHECR)
https://www.auger.org/

Auger EAS expt. 3000 sq. km,

At 1020 eV rate of
@1390 m above sea,
cosmic Rays hit Earth’s
Located in Argentina
atmosphere 10/minute
Hexagonal Grid

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 Pierre Auger Observatory

Pierre Auger accidentally discovered EAS

He found that secondary particles produced

by a cosmic ray of energy 1015 eV will
spread upto 300m2 in the ground

Particles making up the showers travel

through the atmosphere at the velocity of
light and are con ned to a relatively thin
disc

A shower produced by a cosmic ray of

1020 eV contains about 1011 particles at
ground level spread out over an area of
about 20 km2

Pierre Auger Observatory Uses Hybrid Technique :

Two independent techniques to detect Cosmic Rays

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 Pierre Auger Observatory
Surface Detector

1660 Water Surface Detectors : 1.5 km apart, each tank has capacity 12000 lt lled with water. Dark inside. All are
equipped with antenna and GPS. Data transmitted to a central computer.

Whenever charged particles (secondaries in the EAS) pass through it produce Cherenkov Light

Detected by 3 PMTs located inside in UV-Optical band - coincidence required for an event .. 20 events/second

From amount of light - energy of the primary cosmic ray can be estimated

From slight differences in arrival time (detection time) at different tanks one can determine arrival direction

Central computer looks for clusters of detectors triggered almost simultaneously (after allowing for transit time across
the array)

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 Cherenkov Radiation
Most Important Radiation to Detect Cosmic Messengers in High Energy Astrophysics

First observed by Pavel Cherenkov in 1934

When light travel through matter its

velocity decreases : index of refraction =
(speed of light in vacuum)/(speed of light
in matter)

It may happen elementary particles with

speed close to c can move faster than
light in the medium

Emission is forward peak

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 Cherenkov Emission by Secondary
Particles

v<c v>c
v - vel. of charge particle
⇥c ⇠ 1 f or nair = 1.00029
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c - vel. of light in the medium
⇥c ⇠ 41 f or nwater/ice = 1.33 c/n
cos(⇥c ) =
·c
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1
In Air Emin,e = 20M eV & Emin,µ = 4GeV
⇥c 0 )
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n <latexit sha1_base64="I2LAhbzrqZjWtbGgnoudPRNwFb0=">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</latexit>

In water/ice Emin,e = 775keV & Emin,µ = 160M eV

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) Eth = mc2 (1
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1/n)1/2

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 Pierre Auger Observatory
Fluorescence Detector

Operates only in the nights

Total 4 stations. Each station has 6 telescopes. Each telescope has 440 PMTs.

Charged particles (secondaries in the EAS) interact with nitrogen in the

atmosphere, causing it to emit ultraviolet light - uorescence

Cameras can see air showers upto 15 kms away. Basically it studies shower
Developments in the atmosphere.
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 Fluorescence
Similar to Aurora (but short lived)
Emitted Isotropically (Unlike Cherenkov radiation)

Exciting particles are mainly electron/positron

Light produced ∝ energy deposited in the

atmosphere

Equivalent to catch light from a 5W bulb moving

with velocity Close to speed of light at a distance
15 km

Area under the curve Fluorescence detectors Measure light along the
times 2 MeV/gm/cm2 shower track; thus knows height of shower
Energy loss by a maximum
relativistic particle 30
 Symmetries

Translational Invariance
Rotational Invariance