Kavli Affiliate: Stephan S. Meyer
| First 5 Authors: Rebecca Diesing, Stephan S. Meyer, Johannes Eser, Alexa Bukowski, Alex Miller
| Summary:
The second generation of the Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super
Pressure Balloon (EUSO-SPB2) is a balloon instrument that searched for ultra
high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) with energies above 1 EeV and very high energy
neutrinos with energies above 1 PeV. EUSO-SPB2 consists of two telescopes: a
fluorescence telescope pointed downward for the detection of UHECRs and a
Cherenkov telescope toward the limb for the detection of PeV-scale showers
produced by neutrino-sourced tau decay (just below the limb) and by cosmic rays
(just above the limb). Clouds inside the fields of view of these
telescopes–particularly that of the fluorescence telescope–reduce EUSO-SPB2’s
geometric aperture. As such, cloud coverage and cloud-top altitude within the
field of view of the fluorescence telescope must be monitored throughout
data-taking. The University of Chicago Infrared Camera (UCIRC2) monitored these
clouds using two infrared cameras centered at 10 and 12 $mu$m. By capturing
images at wavelengths spanning the cloud thermal emission peak, UCIRC2 measured
cloud color-temperatures and thus cloud-top altitudes. In this contribution, we
provide an overview of UCIRC2, including an update on its construction and
performance. We also show first results from the flight.
| Search Query: ArXiv Query: search_query=au:”Stephan S. Meyer”&id_list=&start=0&max_results=3