Performance and science reach of POEMMA for ultrahigh-energy particles. (arXiv:1907.03694v2 [astro-ph.HE] UPDATED)

Performance and science reach of POEMMA for ultrahigh-energy particles. (arXiv:1907.03694v2 [astro-ph.HE] UPDATED)
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Anchordoqui_L/0/1/0/all/0/1">Luis A. Anchordoqui</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bergman_D/0/1/0/all/0/1">Douglas R. Bergman</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bertaina_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Mario E. Bertaina</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Fenu_F/0/1/0/all/0/1">Francesco Fenu</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Krizmanic_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">John F. Krizmanic</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Liberatore_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Alessandro Liberatore</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Olinto_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Angela V. Olinto</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Reno_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Mary Hall Reno</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Sarazin_F/0/1/0/all/0/1">Fred Sarazin</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Shinozaki_K/0/1/0/all/0/1">Kenji Shinozaki</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Soriano_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">Jorge F. Soriano</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Ulrich_R/0/1/0/all/0/1">Ralf Ulrich</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Unger_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Michael Unger</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Venters_T/0/1/0/all/0/1">Tonia M. Venters</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Wiencke_L/0/1/0/all/0/1">Lawrence Wiencke</a>

The Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (POEMMA) is a potential
NASA Astrophysics Probe-class mission designed to observe ultra-high energy
cosmic rays (UHECRs) and cosmic neutrinos from space. POEMMA will monitor
colossal volumes of the Earth’s atmosphere to detect extensive air showers
(EASs) produced by extremely energetic cosmic messengers: UHECRs above 20 EeV
over the full sky and cosmic neutrinos above 20 PeV. We focus most of this
study on the impact of POEMMA for UHECR science by simulating the detector
response and mission performance for EAS from UHECRs. We show that POEMMA will
provide a significant increase in the statistics of observed UHECRs at the
highest energies over the entire sky. POEMMA will be the first UHECR
fluorescence detector deployed in space that will provide high-quality
stereoscopic observations of the longitudinal development of air showers.
Therefore, it will be able to provide event-by-event estimates of the
calorimetric energy and nuclear mass of UHECRs. The particle physics in the
interactions limits the interpretation of the shower maximum on an event by
event basis. In contrast, the calorimetric energy measurement is significantly
less sensitive to the different possible final states in the early
interactions. We study the prospects to discover the origin and nature of
UHECRs using expectations for measurements of the energy spectrum, the
distribution of arrival direction, and the atmospheric column depth at which
the EAS longitudinal development reaches maximum. We also explore supplementary
science capabilities of POEMMA through its sensitivity to particle interactions
at extreme energies and its ability to detect ultra-high energy neutrinos and
photons produced by top-down models including cosmic strings and super-heavy
dark matter particle decay in the halo of the Milky Way.

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