Speaker
Description
The SKA-Low radio telescope comprising nearly 60,000 antennas in a core region of 1 km$^2$ diameter, is currently being constructed in Australia.
With a number of antennas two orders of magnitude larger than LOFAR, it is a promising next-generation instrument for cosmic-ray detection and precision measurements, operating by the same principles as LOFAR.
To fully make use of the capabilities, the shower analysis and reconstruction methods need to be refined beyond what was used at LOFAR, and multiple avenues are being pursued to this end.
Here we present first results on a template-matching reconstruction method for air shower parameters like the depth of shower maximum $X_{\rm max}$, aiming to use the information in the complete traces of the measured signals rather than only taking their energy fluence. Matching the timings allows for coherent addition of the filtered pulse traces very similar to beamforming, increasing the signal-to-noise ratios. With so many antennas, coherent beamforming lowers the detection threshold to about 1 to 3 PeV of primary energy. This is a considerable step from roughly 50 PeV for methods based on single-antenna signals, thus opening up a new cosmic-ray energy range to be measured with radio antennas.