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  • Writer's pictureOlivia Crew

Cosmic Rays Determine the Speed of Light in Space



Although the speed of light in a vacuum may be the limit of all speeds in the universe, this does not entail that there is a limit to how energetic a single particle may be. Massive particles may be made to move faster by adding more energy to them, asymptotically getting closer to the ultimate cosmic speed limit. Paradoxically, it is more challenging to precisely detect and quantify a particle the more energetic it is.


The explanation is simple: you need the energy of an initial particle's decay and waste products to deposit in your detector to rebuild its original energy, mass, charge, and other properties. The cosmic ray energy, which can be millions of times higher than those attained by the LHC, will make it impossible to build a giant, more massive detector. However, scientists may use a unique approach to quantify this cosmic energy by slowing down the speed of light. How? Read on.


A particle's ability to interact with other particles is progressively easier as its energy increases. Any contact has the potential to either release a photon or a quantum of radiation or to spontaneously produce new particles and antiparticles, according to Einstein's equation E = mc2. The likelihood that a particle would interact in a way that causes it to emit new particles while also wasting energy increases with speed.


NSF/NICOLLE R. FULLER


We have utilised particle accelerators on Earth to accelerate particles like protons and electrons as near the speed of light as possible under laboratory conditions. As a result, we have come incredibly close to the cosmic speed limit that Einstein predicted back in 1905: c or 299,792,458 m/s. But despite how quick and potent we've made them, they still pale compared to the cosmic ray energies we've witnessed.

  • The fastest proton ever measured at Fermilab has a mass of 980 GeV and travels at a speed of 299,792,320 m/s, or 99.999954% the speed of light.

  • The fastest LHC proton has a speed of 299,792,455 m/s at 7 TeV, or 99.999990% the speed of light.

  • Fastest LEP electron (fastest terrestrial accelerator particle): 105 GeV, or 299,792,457.9964 m/s or 99.9999999988% the speed of light.

  • The fastest cosmic ray proton has a mass of 5 1010 GeV and travels at 299,792,457.99999999992 m/s, or 99.999999999999999973% the speed of light.

Compared to the fastest particles of all, Earth-based accelerators are just not in the same league.


However, the physical limitations of the electromagnets and accelerator facilities we construct on Earth restrict the amount of energy our terrestrial energies can produce. And magnetic fields work extraordinarily well in laboratory settings. They are remarkable but cannot compete with the universe's laboratory.


SCHMIDT TELESCOPE, DSS, AAO, UK DAVID MALIN


But the existence of an atmosphere around the Earth is what allows us to accomplish it at all. This atmosphere is hundreds of kilometres thick, acting more like a medium than a space. The speed of light in a medium is always slower, even if the speed of light in a vacuum may be constant and unchanging at 299,792,458 m/s. Even relatively close to a vacuum, air only slows down light to "just" 99.97% of vacuum speed.


National Laboratory of Argon


The high-energy particles interacting with our atmosphere will find themselves travelling faster than the speed of light in this medium, although a slowing of 0.03% isn't much. When that happens, they release a unique form of radiation called Cerenkov radiation, the blue light released at a certain angle in the form of a cone.


For this reason, water surrounds nuclear reactors, which release fast-moving particles that might irradiate a human. They protect people from the particles released by the reactor since they are slowed down by the water and emit a safe blue light. It's a terrific technique to assure the safety of everyone close to take the energy away from the particles themselves and transform it into light since energy is energy.


VLASTNI DILO PUBLIC DOMAIN/SELDON


The plan would then be to construct an Erenkov Telescope Array capable of detecting this light from any location on Earth. You may recreate its attributes entirely differently once you can identify even a small portion of the relevant cone and link it to a specific particle. Construction is anticipated to start by the end of this year, although this is simply a planned project.

  1. IAC PÉREZ

Currently, many gamma-ray observatories serve as Cherenkov telescopes and offer "atmospheric imaging" of the high-energy particles that impact our globe. The sources of these high-energy cosmic rays have never been better identified, with the help of observatories like VERITAS, MAGIC, and H.E.S.S.


However, the Cherenkov telescopes provide something that the particle-based approaches lack: the ability to precisely reconstruct the energy and track the incoming particles by monitoring just a portion of what reaches Earth. With particle-based detectors, you would have to be sure that you were collecting and precisely measuring the energy and momentum from all the particles produced during a shower. That goal is unattainable, not even by top-tier cosmic ray detectors like the Pierre Auger Observatory.

High-energy astrophysical sources can create cosmic rays that can travel to the surface of the Earth.


ASTROPARTICLE ERANET/ASPERA Collaboration


The alternative would be to observe these cosmic ray particles in space before they were ever observed on Earth. However, even if you managed to do so, you would still be constrained by the detector's sensitivity and the quantity of energy that could be placed within it directly. The Fermi gamma-ray telescope, which detects individual high-energy photons rather than cosmic rays directly, cost around $690 million, more than double the planned cost of the whole Erenkov Telescope Array. Launching into space also has a hefty price tag.


Instead, we may learn about the origin and characteristics of these ultra-relativistic particles and the astrophysical sources that produce them by observing the particles and photons produced when a cosmic ray strikes the atmosphere in more than 100 places across the world. The fact that we comprehend the physics of particles travelling faster than the speed of light in one particular medium—the Earth's atmosphere—makes all of this conceivable. Though Einstein's principles may be unalterable, the technique of slowing down light allows us to very smartly discover something that we otherwise wouldn't be able to measure!


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