Radiation from cosmic ray air showers

Cosmic ray showers passing through the atmosphere produce electromagnetic disturbances. It has been suggested that these can be detected by means of a radio telescope. We set up a simple model for a shower and find that the time-integrated energy flux in its radiation field, at say 45 Mc/s, is of the order of 60 000 flux units x microseconds, when the shower contains 10$^6$ electrons and 10$^6$ positrons. The radiation pattern depends on the decay rate of the shower. We have done this calculation in order to give some guidance to experimentalists who are planning to observe cosmic ray showers by radio means. $(1 flux unit = 10^{-26} Wm^{-2} (c/s)^{-1}.)$