Future plans for the Telescope Array experiment

• Main Author: Ogio Shoichi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2013-06-01
• Series: EPJ Web of Conferences
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20135308020

The Telescope Array (TA) experiment is the world's first and the only air shower detector to be directly calibrated by an on-site accelerator beam. For wider and deeper understanding of cosmic rays via high precision measurements, we have several future plans for the TA experiment. The first extension plan is an on-going project, called as TA low energy extension (TALE), to extend the sensitive energy range to 1016.5 eV in order to study the second knee, the predicted galactic-extragalactic transition of dominant sources and air shower phenomena comparing with LHC measurements. The second proposition is exchanges of FDs and SDs between TA and Pierre Auger Observatory, toward understanding systematic uncertainties of these experiments and to solve discrepancies in energy scales and Xmax. The third plan is a huge air shower array, “the world observatory”, consisting of a huge number of SDs and/or FDs for the world's largest exposure and the finest accuracy to open a new window on astronomy with ultra high energy particles.