Development of an extended HiSPARC framework

Abstract

The High School Project on Astrophysics Research with Cosmics (HiSPARC) detector array has been used since the change of the century to detect incoming cosmic rays in the central Dutch area. In the last few years the HiSPARC network has expanded throughout the Netherlands and now even includes stations in Great Britain and Denmark. Due to this expansion cosmic ray spallation processes should now be detectable by the array.

A framework extension to the Simulation and Analysis Program Package for HiSPARC Research and Education (SAPPHiRE) framework was developed to allow for the detection of spallation processes. This new framework, Easy gROOT Gate for SAPPHiRE (EGGS), allows for quick statistical analysis of the \hisp\ data with the data analysis framework ROOT. As EGGS is created in the Python coding language, the original HDF5 document structure of HiSPARC can be maintained.

EGGS includes functionality that allows for easy data access, initial data calibration and conversion to physical units. Further development on data calibration will be necessary to make use of the full potential of EGGS.