Overview of lunar detection of ultra-high energy particles and new plans for the SKA

Understand

The lunar technique is a method for maximising the collection area for ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic ray and neutrino searches.

• The method uses either ground-based radio telescopes or lunar orbiters to search for Askaryan emission from particles cascading near the lunar surface.
• While experiments using the technique have made important advances in the detection of nanosecond-scale pulses, only at the very highest energies has the lunar technique achieved competitive limits.
• This is expected to change with the advent of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the low-frequency component of which (SKA-low) is predicted to be able to detect an unprecedented number of UHE cosmic rays.