Last Update: October 2000

ARGO-YBJ: Italy (INFN) - China (CAS) collaboration

Location: Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Laboratory, 4300 m a.s.l., Tibet (China)

Institutions:

INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Universita', Lecce

INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Universita', Napoli

INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Universita' "Tor Vergata", Roma

INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Universita' "Roma Tre", Roma

INFN and Istituto di Cosmogeofisica del CNR, Torino

INFN, Sezione di Catania and IFCAI/CNR Palermo

INFN, Sezione di Pavia

IHEP, Beijing

Shandong University, JiNan

South West Jiaotong University, Chengdu

Tibet University, Lhasa

Yunnan University, Kunming

Zhenghou University, Henan

 

1. Goal of the experiment

Observation of galactic and extragalactic neutral and charged radiation in the energy range 100 GeV - 20 TeV.

Main Scientific goals:

search and monitoring of the Northern sky sources (-10° £ d £ 70°) at 100 GeV energy threshold with ~ 1/10 Crab flux sensitivity.

from the Galactic plane, SuperNova Remnants, molecular clouds at energies >=100 GeV (never observed so far).

extending the satellite measurements over the full GeV/TeV range.

at energies ~ 1 TeV with a sensitivity adequate to distinguish between models of local (galactic) anti-p production and models accounting for an extragalactic origin.

in the 10 - 200 TeV energy range, with size reconstruction accuracy better than 10 % and sensitivity sufficient to detect a sharp change of the slope of the energy spectrum.

including cosmic ray modulation phenomena at an energy threshold of ~ 10 GeV, large scale structures of the interplanetary medium, high energy solar gamma-rays and neutrons.

2. Physics achievements during the 2000

The 2000 activity has been addressed to the following technical items:

 

3. INFN contribution to the experiment in terms of manpower and financial support

4. Number of publications in refereed journal: 6

5. Number of talks to conferences: 12

6. Number of undergraduate and doctoral thesis on the experiment:

7. Leadership role in the experiment

Lecce: Local Station electronics and trigger.

Napoli: DAQ, gas distribution system, analog read-out, trigger.

Roma-2: Front-End electronics, detector control system

Roma-3: Detector assembling, experiment layout, HV system, trigger distribution.

8. Innovative instruments

The ARGO-YBJ experiment has developed

Many of the technical solutions could be of general interest for experiments aiming to fully exploit the RPCs performance

 

9. Competing experiments

A similar approach to the g -astronomy ("full coverage" detector at high altitude, large field of view, ~ 100 % duty cycle) is already operating (MILAGRO (USA), 2600 m a.s.l., 4800 m2 water pool instrumented with PM tubes + array). The performance of ARGO-YBJ is expected to be definitely better, due to the high space-time granularity as well as to the higher elevation of the experimental site. However, a fast completion and commissioning of the detector is needed.

10. International committee which has reviewed the experiment

The ARGO-YBJ project has been examined and approved by the INFN Committee II and by the CAS Scientific Committee.