High Resolution Fly's Eye Cosmic Ray Detector

Hardware and development

The High Resolution Fly's Eye used larger mirrors and smaller pixels as compared with the original Fly's Eye, hence the name. A prototype of the HiRes experiment operated between 1993 and 1996 at the original Fly's Eye-I site (Five Mile Hill). It was configured in a tower viewing a narrow wedge of sky from 3–73 degrees in elevation. First the Utah ground array and later the CASA and MIA (ground array and muon array) experiments were placed on the surface in the view of the HiRes prototype. This then became the first "hybrid experiment" collecting information both on the development of the air shower induced by the incident cosmic ray, but also measuring the shower's footprint at the Earth's surface and 3 m below surface (with the buried muon array). The HiRes prototype was disassembled early in 1997 to become part of the final HiRes configuration.

In its final configuration, HiRes was composed of two sites separated by 12.6 km. The sites were located on hilltops in Dugway Proving Grounds, a U.S. Army test facility in the West Desert of Utah. HiRes-I (located on Five Mile Hill or Little Granite Mountain^{(40°11′43″N 112°50′11″W / 40.1953°N 112.8363°W)}) had one ring of 22 telescopes viewing from 3–17 degrees in elevation. HiRes-I was instrumented with sample and hold electronics which took a "snapshot" of the extensive air shower generated when the incident cosmic ray interacted with the atmosphere. Meanwhile, HiRes-II (located on Camel's Back Ridge ^{(40°07′55″N 112°57′32″W / 40.13194°N 112.95896°W)}) had two rings of telescopes (42 telescopes) The first set viewed between 3 and 17 degrees elevation while the second set viewed 17 to 31 degrees in elevation. Thus the total field of view was 3 to 31 degrees in elevation and ~350 degrees in azimuth.

HiRes-II was instrumented with a flash analog to digital converter (FADC) so that it essentially made movies of the cosmic ray events. Both observatory sites provided full azimuthal coverage (360 degrees in azimuth). They were operated independently on moonless clear nights. The duty cycle of HiRes was close to 10%.