TANGO Array.: 1. The instrument

TANGO Array is an air shower experiment which has been constructed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was commissioned during the year 2000 becoming fully operational in September, 2000. The array consists of four water Cherenkov detectors enclosing a geometrical area of ∼30,000 m2 and its design has been optimized for the observation of Extended Air Showers produced by cosmic rays near the “knee” energy region ∼4×1015 eV. Three of the detectors have been constructed using 12,000-l stainless-steel tanks, and the fourth has been mounted in a smaller, 400-l plastic container. The detectors are connected by cables to the data acquisition room, where a very simple system, which takes advantage of the features of a four-channel digital oscilloscope, was set for data collection. This data collection setup allows a fully automatic experiment control which does not require operator intervention. It includes monitoring, data logging, and daily calibration of all detectors. This paper describes the detectors and their associated electronics, and details are given on the data acquisition system, the triggering and calibration procedures, and the operation of the array. Examples of air shower traces, recorded by the array, are presented.