KASCADE was a

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

physics experiment Physics is the scientific study of matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the o ...

started in 1996 at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

(now Karlsruher Institut für Technologie), an extensive air shower experiment array to study the

cosmic ray Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the ...

primary composition and the

hadronic interaction In particle physics, a hadron is a composite particle, composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks bound state, held together by the strong interaction, strong nuclear force. Pronounced , the name is derived . They are analogous to m ...

s, measuring simultaneously the

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

ic,

muon A muon ( ; from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with an electric charge of −1 '' e'' and a spin of ''ħ'', but with a much greater mass. It is classified as a ...

ic and

hadron In particle physics, a hadron is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong nuclear force. Pronounced , the name is derived . They are analogous to molecules, which are held together by the electri ...

ic components. KASCADE-Grande was a further extension of the previous project by reassembling 37 detectors of the former EAS-TOP experiment running between 1987 and 2000 at

Campo Imperatore Campo Imperatore ("Emperor's Field") is a mountain grassland or alpine meadow formed by a high basin shaped plateau located above Gran Sasso massif, the largest plateau of Apennine ridge. Known as "Little Tibet", it is located in Gran Sasso ...

, Gran Sasso Laboratories,

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. By this Grande extension of KASCADE the energy range was extended to 10¹⁴–10¹⁸ eV. The experiment contributed significantly to the development of the

CORSIKA CORSIKA (COsmic Ray SImulations for KAscade) is a physics computer software for simulation of extensive air showers induced by high energy cosmic rays, i.e. protons and atomic nuclei, as well as Gamma rays (photons), electrons, and neutrinos. ...

simulation program which is use heavily in astroparticle physics. Co-located with KASCADE-Grande is the LOPES experiment. LOPES consists of radio antennas and measures the radio emission of extensive air showers. KASCADE (including all extensions) stopped operation in 2013, but a part of the detectors is still used in other experiments for cosmic-ray air showers, e.g.,

LOFAR LOFAR may refer to: * Low-Frequency Array, a large radio telescope system based in the Netherlands * Low Frequency Analyzer and Recorder and Low Frequency Analysis and Recording, for low-frequency sounds {{disambiguation ...

or Tunka. The data acquired by KASCADE-Grande has meanwhile been made accessible to the public in th
KASCADE Cosmic-Ray Data Center (KCDC)

Results

KASCADE studied heavier components of cosmic rays, finding a "knee" near 80 PeV in 2011, and extending the spectrum measurements to 200PeV. Later, a knee-like feature in the heavy component and an ankle-like feature in the light component of cosmic rays was discovered at an energy of about 10¹⁷ eV.

Participants

* Institut für Kernphysik and Institut für Experimentelle Kernphysik of Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT),

* Dipartimento di Fisica Generale dell' Università and Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario of

Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica The National Institute for Astrophysics (, or INAF) is an Italian research institute in astronomy and astrophysics, founded in 1999. INAF funds and operates twenty separate research facilities, which in turn employ scientists, engineers and techn ...

Torino Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

Universität Siegen The University of Siegen () is a public research university located in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia and is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a society of Germany's leading research universities. The university was founded in 1972. ...

, Germany *

Universität Wuppertal The University of Wuppertal (''Universität Wuppertal'') is a German scientific institution located in Wuppertal in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The university's official name in German is ''Bergische Universität Wuppertal'' ...

, Germany *

Soltan Institute for Nuclear Studies The Soltan Mosque (Cyrillic: Солтан мәчете; formerly ''Cihanşa bay Mosque'', ''The Red Mosque'', ''Ğosman Mosque'', ''The Eighth Mosque'', also spelled ''Sultan'' or ''Sultanovskaya'' via Russian Султановская мечет ...

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Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

References

External links

* of KASCADE
KASCADE Cosmic-Ray Data Center (KCDC)

LOPES experiment
Cosmic-ray experiments {{astrophysics-stub