Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Physics in Space Experiments: The JEM-EUSO Program
Faculty: R. Caruso, A. Del Popolo, C. Petta
The search for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) through the indirect measurement of EAS can also be conducted in space-based experiments: with stratospheric balloons, on the International Space Station (ISS), or with satellites. Since 2010, DFA faculty members working on this line of research have been members of an international scientific collaboration (approximately 300 scientists from 16 countries) operating within the JEM-EUSO (Joint Exploratory Missions for Extreme Universe Space Observatory) program. The JEM-EUSO Program is an international program in collaboration with major space agencies (ASI, CNES, ESA, JAXA, NASA) of successive and sequential intermediate missions developed from 2014 to the present, with experiments on the ground (TA-EUSO mission) and in space: with a stratospheric balloon (SPB0, SPB1, SPB2, PBR missions) and on the International Space Station (MiniEUSO mission).
The Program aims to explore the feasibility of new techniques for the next generation of detectors and telescopes in space experiments for UHECRs, to raise the TRL (Technology Readiness Level)—an estimate of the level of maturity reached by an innovative technology—and to achieve, for the first time in the world scientific landscape, the measurement of EAS from space with detectors in orbital and sub-orbital flights. The Collaboration is also planning a future mission (POEMMA) with detectors on a stereoscopic satellite system using innovative techniques, opening a new observational window on the most energetic events in the Universe (including very high-energy astrophysical neutrinos).
DFA faculty have contributed from the beginning to various phases of the Program and in various fields, particularly as founding signatories of the SPB2 mission, holding international positions within the next PBR balloon mission (2028, launch from NASA's New Zealand base), leading the validation and calibration of innovative photosensors (SiPMs) for space applications, and among the founding signatories of the future large-scale POEMMA mission [“The POEMMA (Probe of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) observatory” JCAP 06 (007) 2021].
Since 2021, DFA professors have also constituted an operational unit in the existing ASI-INFN-University of Catania and University of Turin Implementation Agreement, Project “ASI_EUSO_SPB2” (CUP F15F21000140005, subject to reporting) on the development of innovative techniques for the search for UHECR in space missions.