0000000001287046
AUTHOR
I. Mitri
Testing Hadronic Interactions at Ultrahigh Energies with Air Showers Measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory
Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray air showers probe particle physics at energies beyond the reach of accelerators. Here we introduce a new method to test hadronic interaction models without relying on the absolute energy calibration, and apply it to events with primary energy 6-16 EeV (ECM=110-170 TeV), whose longitudinal development and lateral distribution were simultaneously measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory. The average hadronic shower is 1.33±0.16 (1.61±0.21) times larger than predicted using the leading LHC-tuned models EPOS-LHC (QGSJetII-04), with a corresponding excess of muons.
The cosmic ray proton plus helium energy spectrum measured by the ARGO-YBJ experiment in the energy range 3-300 TeV
The ARGO-YBJ experiment is a full-coverage air shower detector located at the Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Observatory (Tibet, People's Republic of China, 4300 m a.s.l.). The high altitude, combined with the full-coverage technique, allows the detection of extensive air showers in a wide energy range and offer the possibility of measuring the cosmic ray proton plus helium spectrum down to the TeV region, where direct balloon/space-borne measurements are available. The detector has been in stable data taking in its full configuration from November 2007 to February 2013. In this paper the measurement of the cosmic ray proton plus helium energy spectrum is presented in the region 3-300 TeV by analyzi…
Search for photons with energies above 1018 eV using the hybrid detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
A search for ultra-high energy photons with energies above 1 EeV is performed using nine years of data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory in hybrid operation mode. An unprecedented separation power between photon and hadron primaries is achieved by combining measurements of the longitudinal air-shower development with the particle content at ground measured by the fluorescence and surface detectors, respectively. Only three photon candidates at energies 1-2 EeV are found, which is compatible with the expected hadron-induced background. Upper limits on the integral flux of ultra-high energy photons of 0.027, 0.009, 0.008, 0.008 and 0.007 km-2 sr-1 yr-1 are derived at 95% C.L. for ener…
TeV gamma-ray survey of the Northern sky using the ARGO-YBJ detector
The ARGO-YBJ detector is an extensive air shower array that has been used to monitor the northern $\gamma$-ray sky at energies above 0.3 TeV from 2007 November to 2013 January. In this paper, we present the results of a sky survey in the declination band from $-10^{\circ}$ to $70^{\circ}$, using data recorded over the past five years. With an integrated sensitivity ranging from 0.24 to $\sim$1 Crab units depending on the declination, six sources have been detected with a statistical significance greater than 5 standard deviations. Several excesses are also reported as potential $\gamma$-ray emitters. The features of each source are presented and discussed. Additionally, $95\%$ confidence le…
Nanosecond-level time synchronization of autonomous radio detector stations for extensive air showers
To exploit the full potential of radio measurements of cosmic-ray air showers at MHz frequencies, a detector timing synchronization within 1 ns is needed. Large distributed radio detector arrays such as the Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) rely on timing via the Global Positioning System (GPS) for the synchronization of individual detector station clocks. Unfortunately, GPS timing is expected to have an accuracy no better than about 5 ns. In practice, in particular in AERA, the GPS clocks exhibit drifts on the order of tens of ns. We developed a technique to correct for the GPS drifts, and an independent method is used to cross-check that indeed we reach a nanosecond-scale timing accura…