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.