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Abstract: The Pierre Auger Observatory is the largest detector for the study of extensive air showers induced by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). Its hybrid detector design allows the simultaneous observation of different parts of the shower evolution using various detection techniques. To accurately understand the physics behind the origin of UHECRs, it is essential to determine their mass composition. However, since UHECRs cannot be measured directly, estimating their masses is highly non-trivial. The most common approach is to analyze mass-sensitive observables, such as the number of secondary muons and the atmospheric depth of the shower maximum. An intriguing part of the shower to estimate these observables is its footprint. The shower footprint is detected by ground-based detectors, such as the Water-Cherenkov detectors (WCDs) of the Surface Detector (SD) of the Observatory, which have an uptime of nearly 100%, resulting in a high number of observed events. However, the spatio-temporal information stored in the shower footprints is highly complex, making it very challenging to analyze the footprints using analytical and phenomenological methods. Therefore, the Pierre Auger Collaboration utilizes machine learning-based algorithms to complement classical methods in order to exploit the measured data with unprecedented precision. In this contribution, we highlight these machine learning-based analyses used to determine high-level shower observables that help to infer the mass of the primary particle, with a particular focus on analyses using the shower footprint detected by the WCDs and the Surface Scintillator Detectors (SSD) of the SD. We show that these novel methods show promising results on simulations and offer improved reconstruction performance when applied to measured data.
Keywords: ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), extensive air showers, Pierre Auger Observatory, surface detector, Water-Cherenkov detectors (WCDs), Surface Scintillator Detectors (SSDs), UHECR mass composition, air-shower footprint, machine learning
Published in RUNG: 16.05.2025; Views: 209; Downloads: 4
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Abstract: The origin of Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) is one of the biggest mysteries in modern astrophysics. Since UHECRs are deflected by Galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields, their arrival directions do not point to their sources. Previous analyses conducted on the arrival directions of high-energy events (E ≥ 32 EeV) recorded by the Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory have not shown significant anisotropies. The largest excess found in the first 19 years of data - at the 4.0 sigma level - is in the region around Centaurus A, and it is also the driving force of a correlation of UHECR arrival directions with a catalog of Starburst Galaxies, which is at the 3.8 sigma level. Since UHECRs are mostly nuclei, the lightest ones (least charged) are also the least deflected. While the mass of the events can be estimated better using the Fluorescence Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the Surface Detector provides the necessary statistics needed for astrophysical studies. The introduction of novel mass-estimation techniques, such as machine learning models and an algorithm based on air-shower universality, will help identify high-rigidity events in the Surface Detector data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. With this work, we present how event-per-event mass estimators can help enhance the sensitivity in the search for anisotropies in the arrival directions of UHECRs at small and intermediate angular scales using simulations.
Keywords: ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), extensive air showers, Pierre Auger Observatory, UHECR propagation, UHECR arrival directions, UHECR mass composition, Centaurus A radio galaxy, starburst galaxies, air-shower universality
Published in RUNG: 30.04.2025; Views: 400; Downloads: 6
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Abstract: The Pierre Auger Collaboration has embraced the concept of open access to their research data since its foundation, with the aim of giving access to the widest possible community. A gradual process of release began as early as 2007 when 1% of the cosmic-ray data was made public, along with 100% of the space-weather information. In February 2021, a portal was released containing 10% of cosmic-ray data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory from 2004 to 2018, during the first phase of operation of the Observatory. The Open Data Portal includes detailed documentation about the detection and reconstruction procedures, analysis codes that can be easily used and modified and, additionally, visualization tools. Since then, the Portal has been updated and extended. In 2023, a catalog of the highest-energy cosmic-ray events examined in depth has been included. A specific section dedicated to educational use has been developed with the expectation that these data will be explored by a wide and diverse community, including professional and citizen scientists, and used for educational and outreach initiatives. This paper describes the context, the spirit, and the technical implementation of the release of data by the largest cosmic-ray detector ever built and anticipates its future developments.
Keywords: ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), extensive air showers, Pierre Auger Observatory, open data, UHECR event data, space weather data, Auger Open Data Portal
Published in RUNG: 03.04.2025; Views: 492; Downloads: 8
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Abstract: We report an investigation of the mass composition of cosmic rays with energies from 3 to 100 EeV (1 EeV = 10[sup]18 eV) using the distributions of the depth of shower maximum Xmax. The analysis relies on ∼50,000 events recorded by the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory and a deep-learning-based reconstruction algorithm. Above energies of 5 EeV, the dataset offers a 10-fold increase in statistics with respect to fluorescence measurements at the Observatory. After cross-calibration using the fluorescence detector, this enables the first measurement of the evolution of the mean and the standard deviation of the Xmax distributions up to 100 EeV. Our findings are threefold: (i) The evolution of the mean logarithmic mass toward a heavier composition with increasing energy can be confirmed and is extended to 100 EeV. (ii) The evolution of the fluctuations of Xmax toward a heavier and purer composition with increasing energy can be confirmed with high statistics. We report a rather heavy composition and small fluctuations in Xmax at the highest energies. (iii) We find indications for a characteristic structure beyond a constant change in the mean logarithmic mass, featuring three breaks that are observed in proximity to the ankle, instep, and suppression features in the energy spectrum.
Keywords: ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, UHECRs, extensive air showers, Pierre Auger Observatory, UHECR mass composition, depth of shower maximum, fluorescence detector, surface detector, deep learning
Published in RUNG: 20.01.2025; Views: 803; Downloads: 8
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Abstract: We present results of the measurement of large-scale anisotropies in the arrival directions of ultra–high-energy cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory during 19 yr of operation, prior to AugerPrime, the upgrade of the observatory. The 3D dipole amplitude and direction are reconstructed above 4 EeV in four energy bins. Besides the established dipolar anisotropy in right ascension above 8 EeV, the Fourier amplitude of the 8–16 EeV energy bin is now also above the 5σ discovery level. No time variation of the dipole moment above 8 EeV is found, setting an upper limit to the rate of change of such variations of 0.3% per year at the 95% confidence level. Additionally, the results for the angular power spectrum are shown, demonstrating no other statistically significant multipoles. The results for the equatorial dipole component down to 0.03 EeV are presented, using for the first time a data set obtained with a trigger that has been optimized for lower energies. Finally, model predictions are discussed and compared with observations, based on two source emission scenarios obtained in the combined fit of spectrum and composition above 0.6 EeV.
Keywords: ultra–high-energy cosmic rays, UHECRs, UHECR anisotropies, Pierre Auger Observatory, dipolar anisotropy in right ascension, Fourier amplitude analysis, angular power spectrum, equatorial dipole component, UHECR source emission scenarios
Published in RUNG: 26.11.2024; Views: 958; Downloads: 5
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