I started my summer research with Dr. Fick working in spectroscopy. Using a small spectrometer, I attempted to characterize the spectrum of a UV lamp over long periods of time. These measurements helped to make a control of the lamp’s spectrum. This control will be compared to spectrum taken by a telescope looking horizontally at the same lamp across 50 kilometers of atmosphere above the Pierre Auger cosmic ray observatory. Thus we will be able to distinguish between fluctuations in the spectrum due to aerosols and fluctuations that are not. All of this will help to characterize the aerosols in the atmosphere above the observatory and help in measurements of the cosmic rays.

After this I worked with Mike Gussert on building a small cosmic ray telescope. Using two scintillators, one placed above the other, we developed and built all of the circuitry needed to track coincidences between them. When a particle, a muon, passes through the first scintillator the signal is sent through our circuit and is converted to a TTL logic pulse and fed into an AND gate which is connected to the other scintillator. If a muon passes through both scintillators, then the signal will be ANDED together and we will get a count on the LCD counter on our circuit. The two detectors are mounted such that they can swivel and look at any zenith angle.