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Abstract: The Pierre Auger Collaboration has a long tradition of outreach that engages a wide range of people of all ages worldwide. In Malargüe, Argentina, the heart of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the Visitor Center offers a permanent interactive exhibition. Every November Collaboration meeting, we organize a Science Fair where Argentinian students from across the country can present their works and talk with the scientists at the site, motivating youngsters to pursue a career in Science. We also participate in the local parade, commemorating the foundation of Malargüe. We have developed numerous activities and interactive tools, including a 3-D event display. We have an open data policy and share them according to FAIR principles. Recently, we joined the International Masterclasses within the International Particle Physics Outreach Group, using a framework similar to the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations. In this contribution, we summarize all of our Outreach activities.
Keywords: ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, Pierre Auger Observatory, outreach, education, communication, Auger visitor center, Auger science fair, open data policy, FAIR principles, International Particle Physics Outreach Group, International Masterclasses
Published in RUNG: 17.02.2025; Views: 512; Downloads: 6
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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: 4467; Downloads: 221
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Abstract: Evidence for a large-scale supergalactic cosmic ray multiplet (arrival directions correlated with energy) structure is reported for ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) energies above 10^19 eV using seven years of data from the Telescope Array (TA) surface detector and updated to 10 years. Previous energy-position correlation studies have made assumptions regarding magnetic field shapes and strength, and UHECR composition. Here the assumption tested is that, since the supergalactic plane is a fit to the average matter density of the local Large Scale Structure (LSS), UHECR sources and intervening extragalactic magnetic fields are correlated with this plane. This supergalactic deflection hypothesis is tested by the entire field-of-view (FOV) behavior of the strength of intermediate-scale energy-angle correlations. These multiplets are measured in spherical cap section bins (wedges) of the FOV to account for coherent and random magnetic fields. The structure found is consistent with supergalactic deflection, the previously published energy spectrum anisotropy results of TA (the hotspot and coldspot), and toy-model simulations of a supergalactic magnetic sheet. The seven year data post-trial significance of this supergalactic structure of multiplets appearing by chance, on an isotropic sky, is found by Monte Carlo simulation to be 4.19σ. The ten years of data post-trial significance is 4.09σ. Furthermore, the starburst galaxy M82 is shown to be a possible source of the TA Hotspot, and an estimate of the supergalactic magnetic field using UHECR measurements is presented.
Keywords: astroparticle physics, cosmic rays, UHECR, supergalactic plane, multiplets, magnetic deflection, large-scale structure of universe
Published in RUNG: 19.05.2020; Views: 4107; Downloads: 0
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Abstract: We search for correlations between the positions of extragalactic objects and the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) with primary energy E ≥ 40 EeV as observed by the surface detector array of the Telescope Array (TA) experiment during the first 40 months of operation. We examine several public astronomical object catalogs, including the Veron-Cetty and Veron catalog of active galactic nuclei. We count the number of TA events correlated with objects in each catalog as a function of three parameters: the maximum angular separation between a TA event and an object, the minimum energy of the events, and the maximum redshift of the objects. We determine the combination of these parameters that maximizes the correlations, and we calculate the probability of having the same levels of correlations from an isotropic distribution of UHECR arrival directions. No statistically significant correlations are found when penalties for scanning over the above parameters and for searching in several catalogs are taken into account.
Keywords: acceleration of particles, astroparticle physics, cosmic rays
Published in RUNG: 19.05.2020; Views: 4050; Downloads: 129
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Abstract: One of the uncertainties in the interpretation of ultrahigh energy cosmic ray data comes from the hadronic interaction models used for air shower Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The number of muons observed at the ground from ultrahigh energy cosmic ray–induced air showers is expected to depend upon the hadronic interaction model. One may therefore test the hadronic interaction models by comparing the measured number of muons with the MC prediction. In this paper, we present the results of studies of muon densities in ultrahigh energy extensive air showers obtained by analyzing the signal of surface detector stations which should have high muon purity. The muon purity of a station will depend on both the inclination of the shower and the relative position of the station. In seven years’ data from the Telescope Array experiment, we find that the number of particles observed for signals with an expected muon purity of ∼65% at a lateral distance of 2000 m from the shower core is 1.72± 0.10(stat)±0.37(syst) times larger than the MC prediction value using the QGSJET II-03 model for proton-induced showers. A similar effect is also seen in comparisons with other hadronic models such as QGSJET II-04, which shows a 1.67±0.10±0.36 excess. We also studied the dependence of these excesses on lateral distances and found a slower decrease of the lateral distribution of muons in the data as compared to the MC, causing larger discrepancy at larger lateral distances.
Keywords: UHECR, cosmic rays, muons, particle physics
Published in RUNG: 30.04.2020; Views: 3692; Downloads: 0
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