The fly's eye - a novel technique for sensing extensive air showers

Description of a proposed new device (called the Fly's Eye) was presented and designed to detect the passage of extensive air showers through the atmosphere by their nitrogen fluorescence light. Experimental goals include the measurement of the total proton-air cross section in the energy range 1016-1019 eV, a search for anisotropies, the separation of components in the primary cosmic ray beam, a detailed study of high energy pp interaction models, the observation of possible neutrino induced showers near 1020 eV, a measurement of the rate of gamma bursts, a precise measurement of the primary cosmic ray spectrum up to 1021 eV and a possible location of its high energy cutoff. The design parameters of the apparatus and the results of a computer simulation of its performance will be presented. (orig.)