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Abstract: The Pierre Auger Observatory uses fluorescence telescopes in conjunction with ground level particle detectors to measure high-energy cosmic rays and reconstruct, with greater precision, their arrival direction, their energy and the depth of shower maximum. The depth of shower maximum is important to infer cosmic ray mass composition. The fluorescence detector is capable of directly measuring the longitudinal shower development, which is used to reconstruct the cosmic ray energy and the atmospheric depth of shower maximum. However, given the limited field of view of the fluorescence detector, the shower profile is not always fully contained within the detector observation volume. Therefore, considerations need to be taken in order to reconstruct some events. In this contribution we will describe the method that the Pierre Auger Collaboration uses to reconstruct the longitudinal profiles of showers and present the details of its performance, namely its resolution and systematic uncertainties.
Keywords: ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, Pierre Auger Observatory, extensive air showers, longitudinal shower profiles
Published in RUNG: 20.09.2023; Views: 707; Downloads: 6
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Abstract: We use the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory to search for air showers initiated by photons with an energy above 10[sup]19 eV. Photons in the zenith angle range from 30 deg. to 60 deg. can be identified in the overwhelming background of showers initiated by charged cosmic rays through the broader time structure of the signals induced in the water-Cherenkov detectors of the array and the steeper lateral distribution of shower particles reaching ground. Applying the search method to data collected between January 2004 and June 2020, upper limits at 95% CL are set to an E[sup]-2 diffuse flux of ultra-high energy photons above 10[sup]19 eV, 2 × 10[sup]19 eV and 4 × 10[sup]19 eV amounting to 2.11 × 10[sup]-3, 3.12 × 10[sup]-4 and 1.72 × 10[sup]-4 km-2 sr-1 yr-1, respectively. While the sensitivity of the present search around 2 × 10[sup]19 eV approaches expectations of cosmogenic photon fluxes in the case of a pure-proton composition, it is one order of magnitude above those from more realistic mixed-composition models. The inferred limits have also implications for the search of super-heavy dark matter that are discussed and illustrated.
Keywords: ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, UHE photons, Pierre Auger Observatory, extensive air showers, water Cherenkov detectors
Published in RUNG: 18.08.2023; Views: 685; Downloads: 8
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Abstract: Despite their discovery already more than a century ago, Cosmic Rays (CRs) still did not divulge all their properties yet. Theories about the origin of ultra-high energy (UHE, > 10^18 eV) CRs predict accompanying primary photons. The existence of UHE photons can be investigated with the world’s largest ground-based experiment for detection of CR-induced extensive air showers (EAS), the Pierre Auger Observatory, which offers an unprecedented exposure to rare UHE cosmic particles. The discovery of photons in the UHE regime would open a new observational window to the Universe, improve our understanding of the origin of CRs, and potentially uncloak new physics beyond the standard model. The novelty of the presented work is the development of a "real-time" photon candidate event stream to a global network of observatories, the Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON). The stream classifies CR events observed by the Auger surface detector (SD) array as regards their probability to be photon nominees, by feeding to advanced machine learning (ML) methods observational air shower parameters of individual CR events combined in a multivariate analysis (MVA). The described straightforward classification procedure further increases the Pierre Auger Observatory’s endeavour to contribute to the global effort of multi-messenger (MM) studies of the highest energy astrophysical phenomena, by supplying AMON partner observatories the possibility to follow-up detected UHE events, live or in their archival data.
Keywords: astroparticle physics, ultra-high energy cosmic rays, ultra-high energy photons, extensive air showers, Pierre Auger Observatory, multi-messenger, AMON, machine learning, multivariate analysis, dissertations
Published in RUNG: 27.10.2021; Views: 2812; Downloads: 149
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Abstract: To obtain direct measurements of the muon content of extensive air showers with energy above 10[sup]16.5 eV, the Pierre Auger Observatory is currently being equipped with an underground muon detector (UMD), consisting of 219 10 m[sup]2-modules, each segmented into 64 scintillators coupled to silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). Direct access to the shower muon content allows for the study of both of the composition of primary cosmic rays and of high-energy hadronic interactions in the forward direction. As the muon density can vary between tens of muons per m[sup]2 close to the intersection of the shower axis with the ground to much less than one per m[sup]2 when far away, the necessary broad dynamic range is achieved by the simultaneous implementation of two acquisition modes in the read-out electronics: the binary mode, tuned to count single muons, and the ADC mode, suited to measure a high number of them. In this work, we present the end-to-end calibration of the muon detector modules: first, the SiPMs are calibrated by means of the binary channel, and then, the ADC channel is calibrated using atmospheric muons, detected in parallel to the shower data acquisition. The laboratory and field measurements performed to develop the implementation of the full calibration chain of both binary and ADC channels are presented and discussed. The calibration procedure is reliable to work with the high amount of channels in the UMD, which will be operated continuously, in changing environmental conditions, for several years.
Keywords: ultra-high energy cosmic rays, extensive air showers (EAS), EAS muonic component, Pierre Auger Observatory, underground muon detector, detector calibration
Published in RUNG: 14.04.2021; Views: 2721; Downloads: 139
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Keywords: Pierre Auger Observatory, ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR), extensive air showers, Auger Surface Detector (SD) array, depth of shower maximum
Published in RUNG: 21.12.2020; Views: 2225; Downloads: 66
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