Related papers: Status and recent results from the Pierre Auger Ob…
In this article I review the main theoretical problems that are posed by the highest energy end of the observed cosmic ray spectrum, stressing the importance of establishing their composition in order to decide between proposed scenarios. I…
The wealth of data collected in the last few years thanks to the Pierre Auger Observatory and recently to the Telescope Array made the problem of the origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays a genuinely experimental/observational one. The…
Diffuse photons of energy above 0.1 PeV, produced through the interactions between cosmic rays and either interstellar matter or background radiation fields, are powerful tracers of the distribution of cosmic rays in the Galaxy.…
We consider the ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) spectrum as measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory. Top-down models for the origin of UHECRs predict an increasing photon component at energies above about $10^{19.7}$eV. Here we…
The characteristics of extensive air showers are sensitive to the details of hadronic interactions at energies and in kinematic regions beyond those tested by human-made accelerators. Uncertainties on extrapolations of the hadronic…
The origin and nature of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are one of the most intriguing mysteries in particle astrophysics and astronomy. The two largest observatories, the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array Experiment,…
The Pierre Auger Collaboration is exploring the potential of radio-detection techniques to measure the extensive air showers. The main advantage of these setups is the possibility to cover a large area with no atmospheric attenuation and…
An upper limit of 16% (at 95% c.l.) is derived for the photon fraction in cosmic rays with energies greater than 10^19 eV, based on observations of the depth of shower maximum performed with the hybrid detector of the Pierre Auger…
The Pierre Auger Collaboration has reported evidence for anisotropy in the distribution of arrival directions of the cosmic rays with energies $E>E_{th}=5.5\times 10^{19}$ eV. These show a correlation with the distribution of nearby…
We report a study of the distributions of the depth of maximum, Xmax, of extensive air-shower profiles with energies above 10^17.8 eV as observed with the fluorescence telescopes of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The analysis method for…
The dependence of atmospheric conditions on altitude and time have to be known at the site of an air shower experiment for accurate reconstruction of extensive air showers and their simulations. The height-profile of atmospheric depth is of…
In search for new methods of determining the primary energy spectrum of Cosmic Rays, the attention was paid to the density spectrum measurement. New methods available at present warrant an accurateness of conclusions derived from the…
We present the spectrum of cosmic rays with energies above 2.5 EeV measured at the Pierre Auger Observatory after 19 years of operation, covering the period before the AugerPrime upgrade. Two independent event sets from the surface array of…
We analyze the distribution of arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays recorded at the Pierre Auger Observatory in 10 years of operation. The data set, about three times larger than that used in earlier studies, includes arrival…
The Pierre Auger Observatory can detect with high efficiency the air showers induced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays incident at large (> 60 deg.) zenith angles. We describe here the specific characteristics of inclined and horizontal…
A promising energy range to look for angular correlation between cosmic rays of extragalactic origin and their sources is at the highest energies, above few tens of EeV ($1\:{\rm EeV}\equiv 10^{18}\:$eV). Despite the flux of these particles…
Evidence of azimuthal asymmetries in the time structure and signal size have been found in non-vertical showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory. It has been previously shown that the asymmetry in time distributions offers a new possibility…
The Pierre Auger Observatory has recently undergone a major upgrade, called AugerPrime, tailored to answer the current most pressing questions in the ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) detection. The AugerPrime upgrade consists of the…
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays are known to be mainly of extragalactic origin, and their propagation is limited by energy losses, so their arrival directions are expected to correlate with the large-scale structure of the local Universe. In…
The greater part of this paper is concerned with a historical discussion of the development of the search for the origins of the highest-energy cosmic-rays together with a few remarks about future prospects. Additionally, in section 6, the…