Cosmic rays at energies 10^18 eV and above are known as Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR). UHECR are charged particles that are accelerated by the biggest accelerators in our universe. Candidate accelerators generating these UHECR are super novas, black holes and neutron stars. But where and what these intergalactic accelerators is at large still unknown. One of the experiments in the forefront of research in this eld is JEM-EUSO, a planed space based telescope for detecting UHECR particles as they enter Earth's atmosphere. Made possible by the advances in photon detectors and light weighted Fresnel lenses. A ground based path nder experiment was carried out in 2015 called EUSO-TA to test the optics and photomultiplier technologies. When the UHECR enters the atmosphere it collides with the atoms generating a number of secondary particles which in turn interacts with other atoms in the atmosphere generating a cascade of secondary particles. These trails are known as Extensive Air Showers (EAS). Mostly electrons are generated and in turn they excites the nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere which generate a isotropic characteristic uorescence light. The JEM-EUSO telescope is designed to detect and measure the photon ux. From the photon ux it will be able to estimate the energy of the initial UHECR. JEM-EUSO will cover the largest area of EAS search and increase statistics of UHECR data. This thesis describes the method and development of algorithms made for EAS analysis and detection based on EUSO-TA data. A simulation of EUSO-TA focal surface was developed, simulating background, stars and EAS. The algorithms developed involves a background subtracting lter, line detection using Hough transform and a neural network for decision making. The Hough transform is used in computer vision and is a method used to detect lines in the pictures. It successfully identi ed both simulated and captured UHECR incoming direction with small errors. Neural network are a machine learning method used classi cation and regression problems. With the use of know example data simulated or real captured data a neural network can without explicit programing it, adjust its parameters to t the data. Based on method called supervised learning. The algorithms was programed in Python and using ROOT software to build the neural network. The resulting algorithm was able to successfully detect simulated data. Test on the EUSO-TA captured data shows a promising result but has to be developed and tested further.

The main mission of the JEM-EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory) Collaborationis to observe Cosmic Rays. These high energy particles come from a variety of sources and bombard the Earth all the time. However, the higher the energy, the lower the flux, and particles with an energy above 1018eV (called Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays or UHECRs) are so sparse that just a few might hit the atmosphere in a year. When CRs, and UHECRs, hit the atmosphere they cause what is called Extensive Air Showers, EAS, a cascade of secondary particles. This limits the effectiveness of ground based observatories, and that is where theJEM-EUSO Collaboration comes in. The goal is to measure UHECRs, by observing the fluorescence of the EAS from space. This way huge areas of the atmosphere can be covered and both galactic hemispheres can be studied. Since the JEM-EUSO instruments are telescopes measuring in the near UV range, a lot of other phenomena can be observed. One of these applications is UV nightglow. Airglow in general are lights in the sky which are emitted from the atmosphere itself, while nightglow is simply the nighttime airglow. There are many uses of airglow, and one of these is as a medium to observe atmospheric gravity waves. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a space-based photon counting telescope, such as those of the JEM-EUSO Collaboration, can be used to measure disturbances in the terrestrial nightglow, to identify atmospheric gravity waves. To accomplish this, a theoretical basis for these interactions was explored and a simple scenario was built to explore the plausibility of measuring UV nightglow modulations. The aim was to see what variables would affect a measurement, and how important they were. Along side this, a calibration was conducted on one of the JEM-EUSO Collaborations instruments, the EUSO-TA (EUSO-Telescope Array). The goal in the end was to try and measurethe night sky, to complement the calculations. The investigation showed that the conditions during the measurement are very important to the measurement. This includes things like background intensity, nightglow activity, and magnitude/shape of the modulations. Of more importance though are the parameters which can be actively changed to improve the measurement, the most important of which is measurement time. It was concluded that a measurement of the nightglow modulation should be, under the right conditions, possible to do with a currently operating instrument, the Mini-EUSO, or similar instrument. The calibration of the EUSO-TA involved a series of repairs and tests, which highlighted some strengths and weaknesses of the instrument. However, the calibration itself produced few workable results that in the best case scenario reduced the focal surface to an unevenly biased 2-by-2 Elementary Cell square. Unfortunately this would not be sufficient to do proper measurements with, but the process did point out shortcomings with the then involved sensors, as well as some problematic aspects of the software operating the instrument.

L’expérience JEM-EUSO (traduction de Observatoire spatial de l’univers extrême à bord du module de l'expérience japonaise) est conçu pour observer les UHECR en détectant la lumière fluorescente UV émise par la gerbe qui se développe lorsque les UHECR interagissent avec l'atmosphère terrestre. Les gerbes atmosphériques sont constituées de dizaines de milliards de particules secondaires ou plus traversant l'atmosphère quasiment à la vitesse de la lumière, excitant les molécules d'azote qui émettent ensuite de la lumière dans la gamme UV. Alors que cette « technique de fluorescence » est habituellement utilisée au sol, en opérant ainsi à partir de l'espace, JEM-EUSO, pour la première fois, fournira des statistiques élevées sur ces événements. Avec un large champ de vue de ± 30 °, JEM-EUSO pourra observer depuis l’espace un volume d'atmosphère beaucoup plus grand que ce qui est possible du sol, en collectant un nombre sans précédent d'événements UHECR aux plus hautes énergies.Pour les quatre prototypes d’expériences construites par la collaboration, nous avons développé un ensemble commun d'électronique, en particulier le système central d'acquisition de données capable de fonctionner au sol, sur des ballons à haute altitude et dans l'espace.Ces expériences utilisent toutes un détecteur composé d'un module de détection de photo (PDM) identique aux 137 qui seront présents sur la surface focale JEM-EUSO. La lumière UV générée par les gerbes atmosphériques à haute énergie passe le filtre UV et frappe les tubes à photomultiplicateurs multi-anodes (MAPMT). Les photons UV sont alors transformés en électrons, qui sont multipliés par les MAPMT et le courant qu’ils créent est amplifié par des cartes ASIC de circuit intégré (EC-ASIC), qui effectuent également le comptage des photons et l'estimation de charge. Une carte FPGA nommé PDM board s'interface avec ces cartes ASIC, fournissant des paramètres d'alimentation et de configuration à ces cartes ASIC, collecte alors les données et exécute le déclenchement d’acquisition de niveau 1.Dans le cadre de ces travaux, je me suis occupée de la conception, du développement, de l'intégration et du test la carte FPGA PDM board pour les missions EUSO-TA et EUSO-Balloon ainsi que des tests d'algorithme de déclenchement autonomes d’acquisitions et j'ai également analysé les données de vol d’EUSO-Balloon et de la campagne sol EUSO-TA d’octobre 2015.Dans cette thèse, je donnerai un bref aperçu des rayons cosmiques à haute énergie, y compris de leur technique de détection et des principales expériences pour les détecter (chapitre 1), je décrirai JEM-EUSO et ses pathfinders (chapitre 2), je présenterai les détails de la conception et de la fabrication du PDM (chapitre 3) et de la carte FPGA PDM board (chapitre 4), ainsi que des tests d'intégration d’EUSO-TA et d’EUSO-Balloon (chapitre 5). Je ferai un rapport sur la campagne EUSO-Balloon de 2014 (chapitre 6) et sur ses résultats (chapitre 7), y compris une analyse spécifique développée pour rechercher des variations globales de l'émissivité UV au sol et j’appliquerai une analyse similaire aux données collectées sur le site de Telescope Array (Chapitre 8). Enfin, je présenterai la mise en œuvre et le test du déclencheur de premier niveau (L1) dans la carte de contrôle FPGA (chapitre 9). Un bref résumé de la thèse sera donné au chapitre 10. / The JEM-EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory on-board the Japanese Experiment Module) international space mission is designed to observe UHECRs by detecting the UV fluorescence light emitted by the so-called Extensive Air Shower (EAS) which develop when UHECRs interact with the Earth’s atmosphere. The showers consist of tens of billions or more secondary particles crossing the atmosphere at nearly the speed of light, which excite nitrogen molecules which then emit light in the UV range. While this so-called “fluorescence technique'” is routinely used from the ground, by operating from space, JEM-EUSO will, for the first time, provide high-statistics on these events. Operating from space, with a large Field-of-View of ±30 °, allows JEM-EUSO to observe a much larger volume of atmosphere, than possible from the ground, collecting an unprecedented number of UHECR events at the highest energies.For the four pathfinder experiments built within the collaboration, we have been developing a common set of electronics, in particular the central data acquisition system, capable of operating from the ground, high altitude balloons, and space.These pathfinder experiments all use a detector consisting of one Photo-detection Modules (PDMs) identical to the 137 that will be present on the JEM-EUSO focal surface. UV light generated by high-energy particle air showers passes the UV filter and impacts the Multi-anode Photomultiplier Tubes (MAPMT). Here UV photons are converted into electrons, which are multiplied by the MAPMTs and fed into Elementary Cell Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (EC-ASIC) boards, which perform the photon counting and charge estimation. The PDM control board interfaces with these ASIC boards, providing power and configuration parameters, collecting data and performing the level 1 trigger. I was in charge of designing, developing, integrating, and testing the PDM control board for the EUSO-TA and EUSO-Balloon missions as well as the autonomous trigger algorithm testing and I also performed some analysis of the EUSO-Balloon flight data and data from the EUSO-TA October 2015 run.In this thesis, I will give a short overview of high-energy cosmic rays, including their detection technique and the leading experiments (Chapter 1), describe JEM-EUSO and its pathfinders including a description of each instrument (Chapter 2), present the details of the design and the fabrication of the PDM (Chapter 3) and PDM control board (Chapter 4), as well as the EUSO-TA and EUSO-Balloon integration tests (Chapter 5). I will report on the EUSO-Balloon campaign (Chapter 6) and results (Chapter 7), including a specific analysis developed to search for global variations of the ground UV emissivity, and apply a similar analysis to data collected at the site of Telescope Array (Chapter 8). Finally, I will present the implementation and testing of the first-level trigger (L1) within the FPGA of the PDM control board (Chapter 9). A short summary of the thesis will be given in Chapter 10.