Water Cherenkov detectors

Due to its low cost and reasonable efficiency, one of the most common detectors in cosmic ray physics is the Water Cherenkov Detector (WCD). These detectors are typically composed of a volume of water ranging from one to thousands of cubic meters, and with one or several Photo-Multiplier Tubes (PMT). These stations detect Cherenkov radiation produced by the passage of charged particles faster than the speed of light in water. Another advantage of WCDs is their ability to detect the photons present in the showers, which make up ∼70% of the total EAS particles. With a cubic meter of water, high probabilities of converting a photon into a pair e^±