Violation of the coherence of radio waves induced by a cascade shower in the lunar regolith

Abstract

It has been shown that small fluctuations of the refractive index of the lunar regolith owing to, e.g., a nonuniform density distribution, give rise to the loss of the coherence of a Cherenkov radio pulse induced by a cascade shower from an ultrahigh-energy particle and to a strong decrease in the spectral density of the radio signal. This can be one of the causes of why no events from ultrahigh-energy cosmic particles on the surface of the moon have been detected.