| Description |
Cosmic radiation was discovered in 1912. This year, the 100th anniversary of the discovery, marks not only the major progress that has been made in understanding these particles, but also the remaining questions about them. Questions about their sources, acceleration mechanisms, propagation and composition are still unanswered. There are only two experiments currently running that have the ability to study cosmic rays in the Ultra High Energy (E > 1018'0 eV) regime. The Telescope Array studies Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) using a hybrid detector. Fluorescence telescopes measure the longitudinal development of the extensive air shower generated by a primary cosmic ray particle, while scintillator detectors measure the lateral distribution of secondary particles that hit the ground. The Middle Drum (MD) fluorescence telescope consists of 14 refurbished telescopes from the High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) experiment, providing a direct link back to the HiRes experiment and data. The surface array is comprised of 507 Scintillator Detectors (SD) of a similar design as was used by the Akeno Giant Air Shower Array (AGASA), providing a link to that experiment as well. Studying TA hybrid events (events observed by both the FD and SD), makes the analysis presented in this work the lynchpin that connects the HiRes experiment to the AGASA experiment. This uniquely allows for a direct comparison between the two detection types and allows us to answer questions about the differences in the energy spectrum measurements shown by the two previous experiments. Furthermore, the hybrid analysis improves the geometrical reconstruction of the showers significantly. This provides a more accurate measurement of the energy of the primary particle and makes it possible to make an accurate prediction regarding the chemical composition of the cosmic ray particle. Historically, only the HiRes experiment and the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) have made significant composition measurements of UHECRs, and they report conflicting measurements. The hybrid composition measurement done in this work can be directly compared to the hybrid PAO result. |
