EUSO Team

The JEM-EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory on the Japan Experimental Module,) will be the first astronomical observatory designed to look down on the Earth from above, using our atmosphere as a gigantic detector. The module will be attached to the external pallet of the International Space Station and, during its five-year operational life, be used to detect extreme energy cosmic ray charged particles above 10^²⁰eV. These rays reach the Earth traveling in an almost straight line directly from far away in the cosmos, so determining their direction of travel will provide a clue to their origins, even if the source is invisible. It is expected that these observations will open up an entirely new field of astronomy. Work performed insofar has involved the realization of two prototype telescopes using all the JEM-EUSO technology:

1. TA-EUSO is a ground based telescope to be located in Utah, in front of the fluorescence detector of the Telescope Array collaboration.
2. EUSO-BALLOON is a payload designed to fly at 40 km altitude in a series of stratospheric balloon flights by French Space Agency (CNES), starting from 2014.

This has required the coordination of the national and international effort of integrating the various subsystem from the mechanical to the electrical to the software point of view.

Research Fields

Physics / Computer Science / Multidisciplinary / Space Science

Research Subjects

• JEM-EUSO(Extreme Universe Space Observatory) mission
• PAMELA data analysis (cosmic rays matter and antimatter)
• Development of Large Area Non-destructive Food Sampler

Publications

1. M. Casolino, et al., JEM-EUSO COLLABORATION.:
   "The data acquisition and handling system of JEM-EUSO experiment"
   Nucl. Inst. Meth. Phys. A 623, 516-518 (2010)
2. M. Bertaina, M. Casolino and T. Ebisuzaki editors:
   "Challenges in CR Sciences for the 21st Century – from Earth to the ISS and beyond"
   UAP Inc., Tokyo, Japan (2011)
3. P. Gorodetzky, JEM-EUSO COLLABORATION.:
   "Status of the JEM EUSO telescope on International Space Station"
   Nucl. Inst. Meth. Phys. A, 626, S40-S43 (2011)
4. Santangelo, A., Ebisuzaki, T., Takahashi, Y., Kajino, F., Teshima, M., Parizot, E., Casolino, M., & Medina-Tanco, G.:
   "The Science Case of the JEM-EUSO Mission-Unveiling the Universe at ultra-high energies"
   AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 1238, 380-387 (2010).
5. M. Casolino, et al., JEM-EUSO COLLABORATION.:
   "Detecting ultra-high energy cosmic rays from space with unprecedented acceptance: objectives and design of the JEM-EUSO mission"
   Astrophys. Space Sci. Trans. 7, 477-482 (2011)
6. Yoshiyuki Takahashi & JEM-EUSO Collaboration:
   "The JEM-EUSO Mission"
   New J. Phys. 11, 065009 (2009)
7. O. Adriani, (alphabetically ordered) M. Casolino et al.:
   "PAMELA Measurements of Cosmic-ray Proton and Helium spectra"
   Science, 332, No.6025, 69-71 (2011)
8. O. Adriani, (alphabetically ordered) M. Casolino et al.:
   "PAMELA Results on the Cosmic-Ray Antiproton Flux from 60 MeV to 180 GeV in Kinetic Energy,"
   Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, id.121101 (2010)
9. O. Adriani, (alphabetically ordered) M. Casolino et al.:
   "New Measurement of the Antiproton-to-Proton Flux Ratio up to 100 GeV in the Cosmic Radiation,"
   Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, id. 051101 (2009)
10. O. Adriani, (alphabetically ordered) M. Casolino et al.:
    "An anomalous positron abundance in cosmic rays with energies 1.5-100GeV,"
    Nature, 458, No.7238, 607-609 (2009)