Eur. Phys. J. C (2018) 78: 741
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-6221-2

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

The KASCADE Cosmic-ray Data Centre KCDC: granting open access to astroparticle physics research data

¹ Institut für Kernphysik & Institut für Experimentelle Teilchenphysik, KIT, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Karlsruhe, Germany
² Universidad Michoacana, Instituto de Física y Matemáticas, Morelia, Mexico
³ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Torino, Turin, Italy
⁴ National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest, Romania
⁵ Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario, INAF Torino, Turin, Italy
⁶ Universidade São Paulo, Instituto de Física de São Carlos, São Carlos, Brasil
⁷ Fachbereich Physik, Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
⁸ Fachbereich Physik, Universität Siegen, Siegen, Germany
⁹ Dept. of Astrophysics, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
¹⁰ National Centre for Nuclear Research, Department of Astrophysics, Lodz, Poland
¹¹ Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS), Frankfurt am Main, Germany
¹² Department of Physics, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
¹³ Present address: Siemens AG, Karlsruhe, Germany
¹⁴ Present address: INRIM, Turin, Italy
¹⁵ Present address: DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Munich, Germany
¹⁶ Present address: DLR Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
¹⁷ Present address: University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

^* e-mail: andreas.haungs@kit.edu
^** e-mail: juergen.wochele@kit.edu

Received: 15 June 2018
Accepted: 5 September 2018
Published online: 17 September 2018

Abstract

The ‘KASCADE Cosmic ray Data Centre’ is a web portal (https://kcdc.ikp.kit.edu), where the data of the astroparticle physics experiment KASCADE-Grande are made available for the interested public. The KASCADE experiment was a large-area detector for the measurement of high-energy cosmic rays via the detection of extensive air showers. The multi-detector installations KASCADE and its extension KASCADE-Grande stopped the active data acquisition in 2013 after more than 20 years of data taking. In several updates since our first release in 2013 with KCDC we provide the public measured and reconstructed parameters of more than 433 million air showers. In addition, KCDC provides meta data information and documentation to enable a user outside the community of experts to perform their own data analysis. Simulation data from three different high energy interaction models have been made available as well as a compilation of measured and published spectra from various experiments. In addition, detailed educational examples shall encourage high-school students and early stage researchers to learn about astroparticle physics, cosmic radiation as well as the handling of Big Data and about the sustainable and public provision of scientific data.