2010-10-21 12:46:30

Participation of the Armenian Delegation in the 31-st All- Russian conference on cosmic rays, July 5-9, 2010, Moscow, MSU

The conference concurred with memorabledates, to which special sessions were devoted:

  • 100-year anniversary of Sergei Nikolaevich Vernov, 
  • 50 years after the discoveryof the “knee” in energy spectrum of cosmic rays, 

A session devoted to the memory of recently passed Georgi Timofeevich Zatsepin.

The scientific council of Russian Academy of Science on the problem of cosmic rays considered the “The perspectives ofcosmic ray research” and appointed as council chairman Mikhail IgorevichPanasyuk, director of Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University (SINP MSU).

Many centers of cosmic ray physics in Russia have overcome the crisisof the last 20 years and developed research programs in the fields where the USSR hadtraditionally very strong positions. The experiment leaders submit development projects for the next five years, including:

  1. Kuzmichev, SINP MSU Тунка-133
  2. E. G. Berezhko, The Yakut Institute of Cosmophysical Research and Aeronomy SB RAS«The Yakutsk EAS facility»
  3. I.I. Yashin, National "MEPhI" Experiment «NEVOD-DEKOR»,
  4. A. P. Chubenko, P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences «Tian-Shan complex ATLET»

The Russian physicists actively participate in large international experiments, among which noteworthy are the experiments «PAMELA» and«Telescope Array».

Reports of the Armenian physicists were devoted to the acceleration of electrons in thunder clouds, which attracted the attention of the physics community in connection with the registration of so called . Terrestrial gamma ray flares (TGF), registered by orbital gamma telescopes from the Earth direction. The estimations of distance of these flares’ sources indicated on the tops of the thunder clouds and arouse the problem of additional particleflux registration on mountain altitudes. The Armenian physicists have successfully handled this task on the high altitude Aragats station and presented 4 reportsproving the phenomenon of electron acceleration up to 50MeV energies in thunderstormatmosphere:

  • A. Chilingarian: "Registration of fluxes from thunder cloudson Aragats"
  • B. Mailyan, A. Chilingarian: "Electron and gamma quantum spectra connected with the thunderstorms measured on Aragats"
  • A. Hovhannisyan, A. Chilingarian: "The statistical analysis of time series increases in secondary cosmic rays,registered at mountain level"
  • L. Vanyan, A. Chilingarian: "Modeling of the electron-photon avalanches in thunder clouds. The electron and gamma quantumspectra research under different values of electric field and height"

Figure 1. Evgeni Maurchev (Polar Geophysical Institute of RAS), Bagrat Mailyan,Armen Hovhannisyan and Levon Vanyan discussing the efficiency of the low energyneutron registration with Aragats neutron monitor


When discussing thecooperation possibilities the Russian physicists made several suggestions,including:

  • LPI RASsuggested “Underground horizontal ionizing-neutron calorimeter –as “parmeter” forAragats”,
  • MEPHI: «Installationof muon hodoscopes “URAGAN” on Aragats”, 
  • SINP MSU : «Installation of observation systems for transientoptical effects in thunder clouds on Aragats”
  • A. M. Galper suggested that the CRD should participate in currently developed  project of orbital gamma telescope GAMMA-400 

  

Figure 2. CRD PHD students at the Trtyakovski gallery hall of the ancient Russianart

Theelectronic version of the proceedings of the conference is available from:

 http://crd.yerphi.am/files/31_vkkl/start.html.

 The slides of presentations are available from the conference site:
 http://cr2010.sinp.msu.ru/main-2