Related papers: Cosmic dust grains strike again
If the dark matter of our galaxy is composed of nuggets of quarks or antiquarks in a colour superconducting phase there will be a small but non-zero flux of these objects through the Earth's atmosphere. A nugget of quark matter will deposit…
Granular material is showing very often in geotechnical engineering, petroleum engineering, material science and physics. The packings of the granular material play a very important role in their mechanical behaviors, such as stress-strain…
We describe the general aspects of Monte Carlo Collision Generators suitable for cosmic ray nucleon-Air and nuclei-Air interactions, including accelerator and collider data. The problem of the extrapolation at 3 energy decades above the LHC…
Solid state spectroscopy continues to be an important source of information on the mineralogical composition and physical properties of dust grains both in space and on planetary surfaces. With only a few exceptions, artificially produced…
We present a model of the interaction of interstellar dust grains with a stellar environment, that predicts the distribution of interstellar dust grains in the size range between $0.1 {\rm \mu m}$ and $1 {\rm \mu m}$ around a star for the…
The new experiment ``Extreme Energy Events'' (EEE) to detect extensive air showers through muon detection is starting in Italy. The use of particle detectors based on Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC) will allow to determine with a…
Weak lensing by large scale structure or 'cosmic shear' is a potentially powerful cosmological probe to shed new light on Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Modified Gravity. It is based on the weak distortions induced by large-scale structures…
The recent detection of interstellar polarization in the solid CO feature near 4.67 micron shows that CO-mantled grains can be aligned in cold molecular clouds. These observations conflict with a theory of grain alignment which attributes…
Canonical ensemble Monte Carlo calculations have been carried out on spheres with two different length scales. Radial distribution functions at various temperatures and densities were computed and compared. Preliminary results indicate that…
Stable Superstring Relics (SSR) provide some of the candidates for the possible origin of the Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR). After a brief overview of the motivations for introducing such relics, we address the question whether…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved astrophysical questions. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely to be associated with the most energetic…
We present the impact rates of dust particles recorded by the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) aboard the Cassini spacecraft. The "dust counters" evaluate the quality of an impact and give rise to the apparent density of dust particles in space.…
Very high energy cosmic rays are typically studied by measuring extensive air showers formed by secondary particles produced in collisions with air nuclei. The indirect character of the measurement makes the physics interpretation of cosmic…
Stars form within dense cores composed of both gas and dust within molecular clouds. However, despite the crucial role that dust plays in the star formation process, its dynamics is frequently overlooked, with the common assumption being a…
We developed a radio interferometric technique for the observation of extensive air showers initiated by cosmic particles. In this proof-of-principle study we show that properties of extensive air showers can be derived with high accuracy…
This analysis aims to determine the mass composition and energy of cosmic rays at energies above 100 TeV based on the lateral distribution of extensive air showers. Here, we propose quite a few air shower observables for reconstructing the…
Warm dense matter is one of the most active frontiers in plasma physics due to its relevance for dense astrophysical objects as well as for novel laboratory experiments in which matter is being strongly compressed e.g. by high-power lasers.…
Extensive air showers initiated by ultra-high energy cosmic rays are sensitive to the details of hadronic interactions models, so we present the main results obtained using the data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The depth at which the…
We investigate the physical mechanism of the GZ-effect that could explain the production of multiple primaries from an event initiated outside the Earth's atmosphere. In this case, there would correspondingly be multiple extensive air…
We present the characteristics and performance of a demonstration experiment devoted to the observation of ultra high- energy cosmic ray extensive air showers using a radiodetection technique. In a first step, one antenna narrowed band…