The EUSO@TurLab project

The EUSO@TurLab project is an on-going activity aiming to reproduce atmospheric and luminous conditions that JEM-EUSO will encounter on its orbits around the Earth, once it will be attached to the International Space Station (ISS). The TurLab laboratory, part of the Department of Physics of the University of Torino, is equipped with a rotating tank, normally used to perform fluidodynamics studies. In EUSO@Turlab project the facility is used to simulate different surface conditions with different optical characteristics, like snow, oceans, forests, glaciers, deserts, savannah in a very dark and rotating environment to test the response of JEM-EUSO's sensors and sensitivity. Moreover, it is possible to produce 'replica' of other types of luminous phenomena such as cosmic rays, meteors, city lights, lightnings etc. by using artificially controlled light sources. The detector is a simplified system consisting of a 25 pixel MultiAnode PhotoMultiplier Tube (MAPMT), a focusing lens and a read-out electronics using conventional modules. The experimental set-up currently in operation has been used to check the potential of the TurLab laboratory for the above purposes and the acquired data are used to test the concept of JEM-EUSO's trigger system. In this paper we describe the EUSO@TurLab project, present examples of the luminous conditions produced so far, as well as the results of the tests of the JEM-EUSO first level trigger applied to the data taken at TurLab.