Related papers: Hadronic physics with the Pierre Auger Observatory
Ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are the highest energy messengers of the present universe, with energies up to $10^{20}$ eV. Studies of astrophysical particles (nuclei, electrons, neutrinos and photons) at their highest observed…
Studies of the nature of cosmic ray particles at the highest energies are based on the measurement of extensive air showers. Most cosmic ray properties can therefore only be obtained from the interpretation of air shower data and are thus…
High-energy cosmic rays are observed indirectly by detecting the extensive air showers initiated in Earth's atmosphere. The interpretation of experimental data relies on accurate modeling of the air shower development. Simulations based on…
Using the data taken at the Pierre Auger Observatory between December 2004 and December 2012, we have examined the implications of the distributions of depths of atmospheric shower maximum (Xmax), using a hybrid technique, for composition…
The Pierre Auger Observatory has already collected more ultra high energy cosmic ray data than all the previous experiments. With an hybrid detection technique, it can provide coherent results on the flux, energy spectrum and arrival…
Muons serve as the best probes of the physics of hadronic interactions in the upper atmosphere because of their simple physics. All the properties of detected muons, such as their energy and angle of incidence, are governed by the…
We investigate the detection of exotic massive strongly interacting hadrons (uhecrons) in ultra high energy cosmic ray telescopes. The conclusion is that experiments such as the Pierre Auger Observatory have the potential to detect these…
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest detector for observation of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) (above the energy of $10^{17}$ eV). It consists of a Fluorescence Detector (FD) and an array of particle detectors known…
The properties of cosmic rays with energies above 1PeV have to be deduced from the spacetime structure and particle content of the air showers which they initiate. In this review, a summary of the phenomenology of these giant air showers is…
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR), of energy >10 EeV, arrive at the Earth regularly, but their sources, acceleration mechanisms, details of propagation through the universe, and particle composition remain mysteries. In addition, their…
Presently large systematic uncertainties remain in the description of hadronic interactions at ultra-high energies and a fully consistent description of air-shower experimental data is yet to be reached. The amount of data collected by the…
Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) arrive at Earth from the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the universe. They collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere with energies about ten times higher than any man-made accelerator,…
The Pierre Auger (cosmic ray) Observatory provides a laboratory for studying fundamental physics at energies far beyond those available at colliders. The Observatory is sensitive not only to hadrons and photons, but can in principle detect…
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are the highest energy messengers in the universe, with energies up to $10^{20}$ eV. Studies of astrophysical particles (nuclei, electrons, neutrinos and photons) at their highest observed energies…
The Pierre Auger Collaboration has reported an excess in the number of muons of a few tens of percent over expectations computed using extrapolation of hadronic interaction models tuned to accommodate LHC data. Very recently, we proposed an…
The interaction of ultra-high energy cosmic rays with the atmosphere nuclei has long been seen as a unique opportunity to study hadronic interactions above energies attainable by accelerators. However, so far the multiparticle production…
The Pierre Auger Observatory is currently the largest observatory of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays. Having more data collected than any previous experiment and using a hybrid technique, it can provide important information to unveil the…
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…
The mass composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays is an open problem in astroparticle physics. It is usually inferred from the depth of the shower maximum (Xmax) of cosmic-ray showers, which is only ambiguously determined by modern…
Very high energy cosmic rays are typically studied by measuring extensive air showers formed by secondary particles produced in collisions with air nuclei. The indirect character of the measurement makes the physics interpretation of cosmic…