Theoretical Patricle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award funds the theoretical research activities of Professor Glennys Farrar at New York University. Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR's) are cosmic rays (i.e., subatomic particles) with extreme kinetic energies that not only vastly exceed their rest masses, but also exceed the energies typical of other cosmic rays. These cosmic rays are significant for a number of reasons. First, the origin of their huge energies remains a mystery which touches on numerous aspects of astrophysics. Second, these huge energies vastly exceed those accessible in traditional accelerator experiments. Finally, the energies associated with such UHECR's often violate the so-called "GZK bound" which provides a theoretical upper limit on the energies that cosmic rays may have. Understanding how such UHECR's manage to violate the GZK bound is an important area of research. In her work, Professor Farrar aims to develop combinations of astrophysics analysis methods in order to constrain the sources and possible composition of UHECR's, using recent data from the AUGER experiment. She also wishes to use these techniques in order to map out the galactic magnetic field by exploiting massive new data sets of rotation measures of extragalactic sources in combination with synchrotron emission data from the WMAP experiment. This work is also envisioned to have significant broader impacts. First, it will lead to the development of computational infrastructure (including the development of state-of-the-art techniques for optimizing fits involving many parameters and hundreds of millions of measured data points, new techniques for rapid simulation of particle cascades, and new probabilistic methods of event reconstruction that have implications for pattern recognition problems more broadly). Second, the PI will continue her work with the New York Schools Cosmic Particle Telescope (NYSCPT) Project (a partnership with local New York City schools): this includes further development of the next phase of NYSCPT as well as delivering public lectures on NYSCPT and mentoring NYSCPT participants.