Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays

Letessier‐Selvon, A.; Stanev, T.

doi:10.1103/revmodphys.83.907

Cited by 158 publications

(146 citation statements)

References 172 publications

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“…A cut on signal threshold that rejects all time bins with signals below a certain value (S threshold ) helps to diminish the EM contamination. 2 We set S threshold to 15% of the maximum (peak) of the recorded signal. This cut, apart from minimizing potential baseline fluctuations, guarantees muon fractions above 85%, regardless of the energy and mass of the primary particle.…”

Section: Event Reconstruction a Detector Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the first indications of their existence were obtained more than fifty years ago [1], many of their properties remain mysterious [2]. To answer the question of the origin of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) requires three experimental feats: finding the mass of the primary particles, measuring the energy spectrum, and measuring the distribution of arrival directions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurement of atmospheric production depth

Aab¹,

Abreu²,

Aglietta³

et al. 2014

Phys. Rev. D

122

164

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The surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory provides information about the longitudinal development of the muonic component of extensive air showers. Using the timing information from the flash analog-to-digital converter traces of surface detectors far from the shower core, it is possible to reconstruct a muon production depth distribution. We characterize the goodness of this reconstruction for zenith angles around 60°and different energies of the primary particle. From these distributions, we define X μ max as the depth along the shower axis where the production of muons reaches maximum. We explore the potentiality of X μ max as a useful observable to infer the mass composition of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Likewise, we assess its ability to constrain hadronic interaction models.

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Section: Event Reconstruction a Detector Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurement of atmospheric production depth

Aab¹,

Abreu²,

Aglietta³

et al. 2014

Phys. Rev. D

122

164

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Piro & Kollmeier (2016) argue that rapidly spinning magnetars born from NS mergers are promising sites for the generation of UHECRs (particles with individual energies exceeding 10 eV 18 , see reviews by Olinto 2011 andLetessier-Selvon &Stanev 2011). This is because the shortperiod spin and strong magnetic fields of an NS remnant are able to accelerate particles up to appropriate energies, and the composition of material on and around the NS may naturally explain recent inferences of heavy elements in UHECRs.…”

Section: Ultrahigh-energy Cosmic Raysmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fate of Neutron Star Binary Mergers

Piro

Giacomazzo

Perna

2017

ApJL

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Following merger, a neutron star (NS) binary can produce roughly one of three different outcomes: (1) a stable NS, (2) a black hole (BH), or (3) a supramassive, rotationally supported NS, which then collapses to a BH following angular momentum losses. Which of these fates occur and in what proportion has important implications for the electromagnetic transient associated with the mergers and the expected gravitational wave (GW) signatures, which in turn depend on the high density equation of state (EOS). Here we combine relativistic calculations of NS masses using realistic EOSs with Monte Carlo population synthesis based on the mass distribution of NS binaries in our Galaxy to predict the distribution of fates expected. For many EOSs, a significant fraction of the remnants are NSs or supramassive NSs. This lends support to scenarios in which a quickly spinning, highly magnetized NS may be powering an electromagnetic transient. This also indicates that it will be important for future GW observatories to focus on high frequencies to study the post-merger GW emission. Even in cases where individual GW events are too low in signal to noise to study the post merger signature in detail, the statistics of how many mergers produce NSs versus BHs can be compared with our work to constrain the EOS. To match short gamma-ray-burst (SGRB) X-ray afterglow statistics, we find that the stiffest EOSs are ruled out. Furthermore, many popular EOSs require a significant fraction of ∼60%-70% of SGRBs to be from NS-BH mergers rather than just binary NSs.

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“…Various scenarios have been put forward, combining these possible origins in various ways (see e.g. [45] for an overview).…”

Section: Spectrummentioning

confidence: 99%

Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory

Coutu

2016

Nuclear and Particle Physics Proceedings

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The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest cosmic ray observatory. Our current exposure reaches nearly 40,000 km 2 str and provides us with an unprecedented quality data set. The performance and stability of the detectors and their enhancements are described. Data analyses have led to a number of major breakthroughs. Among these we discuss the energy spectrum and the searches for large-scale anisotropies. We present analyses of our X max data and show how it can be interpreted in terms of mass composition. We also describe some new analyses that extract mass sensitive parameters from the 100% duty cycle SD data. A coherent interpretation of all these recent results opens new directions. The consequences regarding the cosmic ray composition and the properties of UHECR sources are briefly discussed.Keywords: Pierre Auger Observatory, Highlights, Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays The Pierre Auger ObservatoryThe Pierre Auger Collaboration is composed of more than 500 members from 19 different countries. The observatory [1], the world's largest, is located in the southern part of the province of Mendoza in Argentina. It is dedicated to the studies of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) from a fraction of EeV 1 to the highest energies ever observed at several hundreds of EeV. The Observatory comprises several instruments working in symbiosis :• A surface detector array (SD) of 1600 water Cherenkov detectors (WCD) arranged on a regular triangular grid of 1500 m and covering 3000 km 2 [2].• 4 sites with fluorescence detector (FD) (each site contains 6 telescopes for a total of 180 0 azimuth by 30 0 zenith field of view) [3].• A subarray, the Infill, with 71 water Cherenkov detectors on a denser grid of 750 m covering nearly 30 km 2 [4]. This subarray is part of the AMIGA extension that will also have buried muon counters at each 71 WCD locations (7 are in place [30]).• 3 High Elevation Auger Telescopes (HEAT) located at one of the fluorescence site [5] dedicated to the fluorescence observation of lower energy showers.• A subarray of 124 radio sensors (AERA, Auger Engineering Radio Array) working in the MHz range and covering 6km 2 [6].• A sub Array of 61 radio sensors (EASIER, Extensive Air Shower Identification with Electron Radiometer) working in the GHz range and covering 100km 2 [7].• Two GHz imaging radio telescope AMBER [8] and MIDAS [9] with respectively 14 o x14 o and 10 o x20 o field of views.The three last items are R&D on the detection of extensive air showers using the radio emission of the EM cascade in the atmosphere. of the implementation of the quality cut procedure are available via a dedicated SD section. In Fig. 4 we show the percentage of PMTs which do not verify the quality criteria among the functioning ones, since the completion of the array, and this allows us to check the time evolution of the number of rejected PMTs. Pierre Auger Observa 33RD INTERNATIONAL COSMIC RAY COThe most important parameters of the SD calibration [8] are the peak current measured for a vertical muon, ...

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Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays

Cited by 158 publications

References 172 publications

Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurement of atmospheric production depth

Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurement of atmospheric production depth

The Fate of Neutron Star Binary Mergers

Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory

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