Realtime processing of LOFAR data for the detection of nano-second pulses from the Moon

The Lofar Cosmic Ray Ksp, T. Winchen, A. Bonardi, S. Buitink, A. Corstanje, J. E. Enriquez, H. Falcke, J. R. Hörandel, P. Mitra, K. Mulrey, A. Nelles, J. P. Rachen, L. Rossetto, P. Schellart, O. Scholten, S. Thoudam, T. N.G. Trinh, S. Ter Veen

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

The low flux of the ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) at the highest energies provides a challenge to answer the long standing question about their origin and nature. Even lower fluxes of neutrinos with energies above 1022 eV are predicted in certain Grand-Unifying-Theories (GUTs) and e.g. models for super-heavy dark matter (SHDM). The significant increase in detector volume required to detect these particles can be achieved by searching for the nanosecond radio pulses that are emitted when a particle interacts in Earth's moon with current and future radio telescopes. In this contribution we present the design of an online analysis and trigger pipeline for the detection of nano-second pulses with the LOFAR radio telescope. The most important steps of the processing pipeline are digital focusing of the antennas towards the Moon, correction of the signal for ionospheric dispersion, and synthesis of the time-domain signal from the polyphased-filtered signal in frequency domain. The implementation of the pipeline on a GPU/CPU cluster will be discussed together with the computing performance of the prototype.

Original languageBritish English
Article number032004
JournalJournal of Physics: Conference Series
Volume898
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 23 Nov 2017
Event22nd International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics, CHEP 2016 - San Francisco, United States
Duration: 10 Oct 201614 Oct 2016

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