Basic questions regarding ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) remain unanswered: What cosmic objects generate such extremely energetic particles that reach above 10^20 eV (100 EeV)? What is this extreme acceleration mechanism? What are the corresponding neutrino fluxes from sources and propagation? How do particles interact at extreme energies? Giant ground observatories, such as the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array, have shown that UHECRs are extragalactic and have a surprising composition trend. Hints of anisotropies begin to appear at energies above ~60 EeV, just when statistics become very limited. We are designing and building space and sub-orbital missions to increase the statistics of UHECR observations at the highest energies. An international collaboration built the Extreme Universe Space Observatory (EUSO) on a super pressure balloon (SPB) to detect UHECR fluorescence from above. EUSO-SPB1 flew in the Spring of 2017. We are now working on EUSO-SPB2 to observe Cherenkov from UHECRs and inform the design of the POEMMA (Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) space mission to discover the sources of UHECRs and observe ~100 PeV neutrinos from transients.

About the Speaker:

Angela V. Olinto is the Dean of the Physical Sciences Division of the University of Chicago and the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. She was Chair of the Department from 2003-2006 and from 2012-2017. Olinto is best known for her contributions to the study of quark stars, primordial inflation, cosmic magnetic fields, and the origin of the high energy cosmic rays and neutrinos arriving on Earth from distant galaxies. She is the Principal Investigator of the POEMMA (Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) space mission and the EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory) on a super pressure balloon (SPB) mission, and a member of the Pierre Auger Observatory, all designed to discover the origin of the highest energy particles and to study their sources and interactions.

Prof. Olinto received a B.S. in Physics from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1981, and Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was a trustee of the Aspen Center for Physics, and has served on many advisory committees for the National Academy of Sciences, Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She received the Chaire d’Excellence Award of the French Agence Nationale de Recherche in 2006, the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2011, and the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in 2015 at the University of Chicago.
                   
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