Chinese Journal of Nature ›› 2012, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (5): 284-290.

Special Issue: 星空探索

• Progress • Previous Articles     Next Articles

ARGO-YBJ: Fruitful Cosmic Ray Observations

CAO Zhen    

  1. Professor,Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049,China
  • Received:2012-03-12 Revised:2012-04-12 Online:2012-10-25 Published:2012-10-25

Abstract: Being smoothly operated for 5 years, the ARGO-YBJ experiment collected 0.4 trillion cosmic ray event samples. Many scientific goals have been achieved based on the very important data base. Here in this article, we summarize all major contributions to cosmic ray related researches, including conventional measurements such as cosmic ray energy spectrum, composition and anisotropy. The researches also cover many nontraditional topics such as the monitoring of solar activity using Galactic cosmic rays, forecasting large geomagnetic storms induced by huge flares of the sun, exploring the correlation between thunderstorms and extensives air shower of cosmic rays and so forth. With the progresses of the future experiment LHAASO, all researches reported in this paper will be greatly enhanced using the most sensitive new generation apparatus. Breakthrough may be expected in some of the topics. 

Key words: cosmic ray, interplanetary magnetic field, thunderstorm