Astroparticle physics in the context of "SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory"

In astroparticle physics, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) is a cosmic ray with an energy greater than 1 EeV (10 electronvolts, approximately 0.16 joules), far beyond both the rest mass and energies typical of other cosmic ray particles. The origin of these highest energy cosmic rays is not known.

These particles are extremely rare; between 2004 and 2007, the initial runs of the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) detected 27 events with estimated arrival energies above 5.7×10 eV, that is, about one such event every four weeks in the 3000 km (1200 sq mi) area surveyed by the observatory.

Neutrino astronomy is a branch of astronomy that gathers information about astronomical objects by observing and studying neutrinos emitted by them with the help of neutrino detectors in special Earth observatories. It is an emerging field in astroparticle physics providing insights into the high-energy and non-thermal processes in the universe.

Neutrinos are nearly massless and electrically neutral or chargeless elementary particles. They are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, nuclear reactions such as those that take place in the Sun or high energy astrophysical phenomena, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays hit atoms in the atmosphere. Neutrinos rarely interact with matter (only via the weak nuclear force), travel at nearly the speed of light in straight lines, pass through large amounts of matter without any notable absorption or without being deflected by magnetic fields. Unlike photons, neutrinos rarely scatter along their trajectory. But like photons, neutrinos are some of the most common particles in the universe. Because of this, neutrinos offer a unique opportunity to observe processes that are inaccessible to optical telescopes, such as reactions in the Sun's core. Neutrinos that are created in the Sun's core are barely absorbed, so a large quantity of them escape from the Sun and reach the Earth. Neutrinos can also offer a very strong pointing direction compared to charged particle cosmic rays.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a federally funded research and development center in Menlo Park, California, United States. Founded in 1962, the laboratory is now sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administrated by Stanford University. It is the site of the Stanford Linear Accelerator, a 3.2 km (2 mi) linear accelerator constructed in 1966 that could accelerate electrons to energies of 50 GeV.

Today SLAC research centers on a broad program in atomic and solid-state physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine using X-rays from synchrotron radiation and a free-electron laser as well as experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle physics, accelerator physics, astroparticle physics, and cosmology. The laboratory is under the programmatic direction of the United States Department of Energy Office of Science.

Bharat Vishnu Ratra (born 26 January 1960) is an Indian-American physicist, physical cosmologist and astroparticle physicist who is currently a university distinguished professor of physics at Kansas State University.

He is known for his work on dynamical dark energy and on the quantum-mechanical generation of energy density and magnetic field fluctuations during inflation.