Solar panels as cosmic-ray detectors

Abstract

Due to fundamental limitations of accelerators, only cosmic rays can give access to centre-of-mass energies more than one order of magnitude above those reached at the LHC. In fact, extreme energy cosmic rays (1018 eV - 1020 eV) are the only possibility to explore the 100 TeV energy scale in the years to come. This leap by one order of magnitude gives a unique way to open new horizons: new families of particles, new physics scales, in-depth investigations of the Lorentz symmetries. However, the flux of cosmic rays decreases rapidly, being less than one particle per square kilometer per year above 1019 eV: one needs to sample large surfaces. A way to develop large-effective area, low cost, detectors, is to build a solar panel-based device which can be used in parallel for power generation and Cherenkov light detection. Using solar panels for Cherenkov light detection would combine power generation and a non-standard detection device.