Course PHYS 897A:
Extreme Particle Astrophysics*

July 6 - 11, 2008

Full Tuition Subsidies Still Available!

Great course for Chemistry Teachers!

Following a brief overview of modern particle physics, learn why and how particle astrophysicists are building detectors at the South Pole, on the Argentine Pampas, and on balloons high over Antarctica. Explore the science of enigmatic ultrahigh energy cosmic-ray particles, cosmological neutrinos, antimatter from annihilating dark matter particles, and gamma-rays from galactic and extragalactic sources. Build and use devices made from household materials to detect air showers generated by cosmic-ray protons. Explore resources that explain the underlying science. Learn about the effects of cosmic radiation on Earth and on people traveling in space.

*Most approriate for 9-12 Grade Educators, but 4-8 Grade Educators are welcome to apply.

Tentative Schedule

Sunday: Orientation

Monday: Historical Perspectives on Cosmic-ray and Particle Physics; Particle Physics and Astrophysical Sources of Ultrahigh Energy Particles; Introduction to Evidence for and Significance of Dark Matter

Tuesday: Ultrahigh Energy Particle Propagation Through Space; Techniques for Ultrahigh Energy Particle Detection

Wednesday: Air Shower Physics and the Pierre Auger Cosmic-ray Observatory; High-Altitude Balloon-based Cosmic-ray Studies

Thursday: Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole

Friday: High Energy Gamma Ray Sources and Detection

National Science Education Standards

• History and Nature of Science

5-8 grade: History of Science

9-12 grade: Nature of Science knowledge

• Earth and Space Science

9-12 grade: Origin and evolution of the universe

• Physical Science

5-8 grade: Transfer of energy

9-12 grade: Interactions of energy and matter

Pennsylvania Academic Standards for Science and Technology with Assessment Anchors

• Physical Science, Chemistsry, and Physics

7th grade

3.4.D: Describe essential ideas about the composition and structure of the universe and the earth's place in it.

10th grade

3.4.D: Explain essential ideas about the composition and structure of the universe.

12th grade

3.4.D: Analyze the essential ideas about the composition and structure of the universe.

• Unifying Themes

7th grade

3.1.B: Describe the use of models as an application of scientific or technological knowledge.

10th grade

3.1.B: Describe concepts of models as a way to predict and understand science and technology.

• Inquiry and Design

7th grade

3.2.A: Explain and apply scientific and technological knowledge.

10th grade

3.2.A: Apply knowledge and understanding about the nature of scientific and technological knowledge.

Lead Instructors

	Dr. Stephane Coutu has been at Penn State since 1997 and is currently an associate professor in the Departments of Physics and of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Previously he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Michigan and a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology. Coutu designs and builds scientific instrumentation (assorted particle detectors and readout electronics) integrated into complex payloads flown on high-altitude NASA balloons from remote locations such as Antarctica, northern Canada or the US Southwest wilderness. With these, he studies naturally occurring high-energy particles of matter and antimatter, in an effort to identify and characterize their sources in the Galaxy. He is also involved in the large international Pierre Auger collaboration, currently constructing the world's largest detector over an area the size of Rhode Island in western Argentina, with which the most energetic and rarest particles in the Universe are studied. Coutu is an author of over 70 research articles and has an active research group of graduate and undergraduate students. He regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate physics courses at Penn State on classical and modern physics, and advanced laboratory techniques. Coutu has won several awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
	Dr. Doug Cowen started at Penn State in 2002 and is currently an Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Astrophysics. With training in high energy particle physics, he earned his PhD at the European laboratory called CERN, worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Caltech at the Cornell Electron Synchrotron, and then as an Assistant Professor at University of Pennsylvania on the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), a neutrino experiment in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. While at Penn, in 1997, he joined the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) a large-scale neutrino telescope under construction at the South Pole, Antarctica. Leveraging the success of the AMANDA project, he worked with a large international collaboration of physicists and astronomers to propose the logical extension of the AMANDA project, known as IceCube. IceCube was approved and is currently under construction at the South Pole. With Assistant Professor DeYoung, and a group of about ten postdoctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduates, Cowen is helping to construct IceCube at the South Pole, working in a variety of areas such as detector triggering, data integrity verification, and calibration. The goal of IceCube is to detect ultrahigh energy neutrinos from cosmological sources in an attempt to open up a new window on the universe, also known as the "neutrino sky." Possible sources of ultrahigh energy neutrinos include some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, assumed to be fueled by enormous black holes, such as Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Other possible sources include dark matter annihilation, relic heavy particles left over from the Big Bang, and other more exotic neutrino progenitors.
	Dr. Irina Mocioiu joined Penn State in August 2005 as an Assistant Professor of Physics. She was previously a research associate at Argonne National Laboratory/University of Chicago and at the University of Arizona. She got her PhD from SUNY Stony Brook. She is pursuing phenomenological work in particle physics and astrophysics, with emphasis on neutrino physics. She is also actively participating in joint work of theorists and experimenters with the goal of designing the next generation neutrino experiments.
	Dr. Paul Sommers is a professor of physics and professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University. His specialty is the highest energy cosmic rays - detecting them and deciphering their message. These particles have energies 100 million times greater than what is possible in the best particle accelerators on Earth. Where and how does Nature produce these phenomenal particles? The Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory is an international effort to answer these questions. A detector array in Argentina covers an area the size of Rhode Island. A similar detector array will be built in Colorado to provide full-sky exposure to these rare and mysterious particles.
	Asst. Prof. Tyce DeYoung is an assistant professor of physics at Penn State. His research interests are in high energy neutrino and gamma ray astronomy -- learning about extremely energetic objects in the Universe, such as Gamma Ray Bursts, Active Galactic Nuclei, and Supernova Remnants, by observing the particles and photons they emit. He is presently working with Prof. Cowen and an international team of physicists to build the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole. He is also working on R&D for a ground-based gamma ray telescope with a very wide field of view, suitable for observing very short transient events such as the mergers of neutron stars and black holes. He received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland and the University of California at Santa Cruz prior to joining the Penn State faculty.