A future project at tibet:the large high altitude air shower observatory(LHAASO)

Gamma ray source detection above 30 TeV is an encouraging approach for finding galactic cosmic ray sources. All sky survey for gamma ray sources using wide field of view detector is essential for population accumulation for various types of sources above 100 GeV. In order to target those goals, a large air shower particle detector array of 1 km^2 （the LHAASO project） at 4300 m a.s.l, is proposed, By adding two MagicⅡ- type telescopes in the array as proposed, LHAASO will be enhanced in source morphologic investigation power. The proposed array will be utilized also for energy spectrum measurement for individual cosmic ray species above 30 TeV. By re-configuring the wide field of view telescopes into fluorescence light detector array, the aperture of the detector array can be enlarged to cover an energy region above 100 PeV where the second knee is located. Cosmic ray spectrum and composition will be measured in order to transfer an energy scale to ultra high energy cosmic ray experiments.

Design of the LHAASO detectors

Introduction The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory plans to build a hybrid extensive air shower array with an area of about 1 km^(2) at an altitude of 4,410 m a.s.l.in Sichuan province,China,to explore the origin of high-energy cosmic rays.KM2A LHAASO-KM2A will detect gamma ray sources with a sensitivity of about 1%Crab Unit at 100 TeV.It covers an area of 1 km^(2) with a total of 5195 scintillation detectors.Its angular resolution reaches about 0.3 degrees,and the energy resolution is better than 25%.With the help of 1171 muon detectors,cosmic nuclei background will be rejected to a level of 10-4 at 50 TeV.The design and performances of the scintillation detectors and muon detectors are described in detail.WCDA LHAASO-WCDA focuses on surveying the northern sky for steady and transient sources from 100 GeV to 20 TeV,with a very high background rejection power and a good angular resolution.The WCDA consists of three water ponds with a total area of 78,000 m^(2),and the effective water depth is 4 m.Each water pond is divided into 5m×5m cells partitioned by black plastic curtains to prevent penetration of the light from neighboring cells.An 8-inch PMT sits at the bottom center of each cell,looking upward to collect Cherenkov light generated by shower secondary particles in water.WFCTA LHAASO-WFCTA is composed of 12 wide-field-of-view Cherenkov/fluorescence telescopes.Each telescope consists of a spherical light collector of about 4.7 m^(2) and focal plane camera of 32×32 pixels with a pixel size of 0.5 degree.LHAASO prototype arrays A prototype array about 1%of LHAASO has been constructed at Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Observatory and has been in operation for more than 2 years.Its performance fully meets the design requirements.Conclusion The LHAASO detectors are designed to fulfill the physical goals in gamma ray astronomy and cosmic ray physics.One-fourth of LHAASO will be constructed and put into operation to produce physical data by the end of 2018.The whole array will be finished in the beginning of 2021.

Chapter 1 LHAASO Instruments and Detector technology

The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory(LHAASO)(Fig.1)is located at Mt.Haizi(4410 m a.s.l.,600 g/cm^(2),29°21'27.56"N,100°08'19.66"E)in Daocheng,Sichuan province,P.R.China.LHAASO consists of 1.3 km^(2) array(KM2A)of electromagnetic particle detectors(ED)and muon detectors(MD),a water Cherenkov detector array(WCDA)with a total active area of 78,000 m^(2),18 wide field-of-view air Cherenkov telescopes(WFCTA)and a newly proposed electron-neutron detector array(ENDA)covering 10,000 m^(2).Each detector is synchronized with all the other through a clock synchronization network based on the White Rabbit protocol.The observatory includes an IT center which comprises the data acquisition system and trigger system,the data analysis facility.In this Chapter,all the above-mentioned components of LHAASO as well as infrastructure are described.