Related papers: The most energetic cosmic rays and their possible …
In this paper we review air shower data related to the mass composition of cosmic rays above 10$^{15}$ eV. After explaining the basic relations between air shower observables and the primary mass and energy of cosmic rays, we present…
Seven and a half years of continuous monitoring of giant air showers triggered by ultra high-energy cosmic rays have been recently summarized by the AGASA collaboration. The resulting energy spectrum indicates clearly that the cosmic ray…
The accurate determination of the elemental composition of cosmic rays at high energies is expected to provide crucial clues on the origin of these particles. Previous direct measurements of composition have been limited by experiment…
The latest results on the sky distribution of ultra-high energy cosmic ray sources have consequences for their nature and time structure. If the sources accelerate predominantly nuclei of atomic number A and charge Z and emit continuously,…
In this article a new method is proposed for estimating the mass composition of cosmic rays in individual events with energies above $1.25 \times 10^{19}$ eV. It is based on a joint analysis of experimental data and simulation results…
A thorough search of the sky exposed at the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory reveals no statistically significant excess of events in any small solid angle that would be indicative of a flux of neutral particles from a discrete source.…
The energy output (per logarithmic interval of particle energies) of Cosmic Rays (CRs) with energies $10{\rm GeV}\lesssim\varepsilon_p\lesssim100{\rm GeV}$ is $\sim 10^{47}\rm erg$ per solar mass of star$-$formation, based on the CR…
The properties of cosmic rays with energies above 10**6 GeV have to be deduced from the spacetime structure and particle content of the air showers which they initiate. In this review we summarize the phenomenology of these giant air…
The differential energy spectrum of cosmic rays from Cherenkov radiation measurements in EAS in the energy range of 10^15-10^20eV has been compared with an anomalous diffusion model for the particles in interstellar space having fractal…
The current studies of cosmic rays are focused on most energetic particles entering the atmosphere and producing a single Extensive Air Shower (EAS). There are, however, models predicting that interactions of high energy particles may…
Recent observations of cosmic ray protons in the energy range $10^2$--$10^5$~GeV have revealed that the spectrum cannot be described by a simple power law. A hardening of the spectrum around an energy of order few hundred~GeV, first…
The Pierre Auger Observatory has collected data for more than 15 years, accumulating the world's largest exposure to ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). The energy spectrum of the UHECRs has been measured up to $10^{20.2}$ eV, and their…
The origin of Galactic cosmic rays (with energies up to 10^15 eV) remains unclear, though it is widely believed that they originate in the shock waves of expanding supernova remnants. Currently the best way to investigate their acceleration…
Using the concept developed in earlier papers, that the cosmic rays originate in three different main sites, a) the normal supernova explosions into the interstellar medium, b) the supernova explosions into a stellar wind, and c) powerful…
A fundamental question that can be answered in the next decade is: WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE HIGHEST ENERGY COSMIC PARTICLES? The discovery of the sources of the highest energy cosmic rays will reveal the workings of the most energetic…
We use the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory to search for air showers initiated by photons with an energy above $10^{19}$ eV. Photons in the zenith angle range from 30$^\circ$ to 60$^\circ$ can be identified in the…
We reanalyze archival EAS-MSU data in order to search for events with anomalously low content of muons with energies E_mu>10 GeV in extensive air showers with number of particles N_e>2*10^7. We confirm the first evidence for nonzero flux of…
The shape of the longitudinal development of the showers generated in the atmosphere by very high energy cosmic ray particles encodes information about the mass composition of the flux, and about the properties of hadronic interactions that…
A thorough search for large scale anisotropies in the distribution of arrival directions of cosmic rays detected above $10^{18}$ eV at the Pierre Auger Observatory is reported. For the first time, these large scale anisotropy searches are…
We computed the energy spectra of the incident (on an air shower array) ultrahigh-energy (E > 4x10^19 eV) cosmic rays (CRs) that were accelerated in nearby Seyfert nuclei at redshifts z<= 0.0092 and in BL Lac objects. For our calculations,…