High Energy Cosmic Ray Air Shower Events Studied through Radio Emission

One of the great mysteries remaining in astrophysics today is the unknown production mechanism of high-energy cosmic rays (HECRs). Since their initial discovery in the early 20th century, much greater energy cosmic ray events have been documented, some exceeding 10$^{20}$ eV. In 1962 G. A. Askaryan proposed that air showers of elementary particles produced by HECRs entering the atmosphere would emit a coherent radio signature (\emph{Sov. Phys. JETP} \textsf{14}, 441--443). The electronics available at the time, however, were largely incapable of handling such signals. Innovative research in this field is only recently possible with the advent of a new species of interferometric software radio telescopes. Within this category, the LOPES phased array (Low Frequency Array Prototype Station), operating within the range of 40--80 MHz, seeks to further study the processes of high energy cosmic ray air showers. The LOPES collaboration has recently reported a breakthrough correlation between HECR air shower events and predicted radio flashes as explained by so-called geosynchrotron radiation (Falcke, H. et al. \emph{Nature} \textsf{435}, 313--316, 2005). This presentation will briefly describe the LOPES project and the software development that was completed for \textsc{LOPES}--{\tt Tools}, the software package that is used for data analysis and mitigation of radio frequency interference for the LOPES project.