Bistatic radar detection of uhecr with tara

The Telescope Array Radar (TARA) project will utilize a bistatic radar technique to detect radar echoes from the ionization trails of ultra-high energy cosmic rays as they pass through the Earth’s atmosphere. This method of observing cosmic rays is unproven, and TARA is the largest and most ambitious attempt yet at detecting UHECR via their radar signature. TARA is co-located with the Telescope Array, the largest cosmic ray observatory in the Northern Hemisphere, which will provide confirmation of the radar detection of UHECRs via time coincidence. Since mid-2011, TARA has been field testing a low power version of the experiment to gain expertise and study techniques to better utilize the radar method on a much larger scale. In 2013 TARA will begin operations in high power mode using a 40 kW transmitter and a phased array of eight high-gain Yagi antennas with a gain of 23 dBi, broadcasting at 54.1 MHz with 100% duty cycle over the TA surface detector array. The effective radiated power will be over 8 MW, continuous. We will also be deploying an enhanced receiver system, making use of a 250 MHz receiver and on-board FPGA to allow smart triggering on signals with a signal-to-noise ratio of -10 to -20 dB. TARA will be the first experiment to attempt to utilize this detection technique at such high power in conjunction with a large cosmic ray detector. If this technique is proven successful, it will allow very large cosmic ray observatories, which are required to fully probe the ultra high energy regime, to be built much more cheaply and on larger scales than the current generation of fluorescence detectors and surface arrays. We will discuss the TARA observatory and present results obtained from our most recent analyses.