Anisotropy studies with multiscale autocorrelation function

Abstract

We present a novel method, based on a multiscale approach, for detecting anisotropy signatures in the arrival direction distribution of the highest energy cosmic rays. This method is catalog independent, i.e. it does not depend on the choice of a particular catalog of candidate sources, and it provides a good discrimination power even in presence of contaminating isotropic background. We present applications to simulated data sets of events corresponding to plausible scenarios for events detected, in the last decades, by world-wide surface detector-based observatories for charged particles.