Related papers: Future directions in astroparticle physics and the…
We review the basic ideas on the origin of cosmic rays with energy in excess of $\sim 10^{19}$ eV, in the light of the most recent observational findings. The limited statistics of events detected by the two largest experiments currently…
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest detector of ultra--high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). It uses an array of fluorescence telescopes and particle detectors at the ground to obtain detailed measurements of the energy…
Several explanations for the existence of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) invoke the idea that they originate from the decay of massive particles created in the reheating following inflation. It has been suggested that the decay…
The origin of the ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) with energies above E > 1017eV, is still unknown. The discovery of their sources will reveal the engines of the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the universe. This is a…
The arrival directions of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) may show anisotropies on all scales, from just above the experimental angular resolution up to medium scales and dipole anisotropies. We find that a global comparison of the…
The joint analysis of anisotropy signals and chemical composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays offers strong potential for shedding light on the sources of these particles. Following up on an earlier idea, this paper studies the…
A posteriori anisotropy study of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) with the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) has shown evidence of excess of cosmic ray particles above 55 EeV within $18^{\circ}$ of the direction of the radio galaxy…
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 Observatory is a major international effort aiming at high-statistics study of highest energy cosmic rays. A general description of the experimental set-up and overall performance of the detector at first light are…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved questions in astrophysics. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely associated with the most energetic processes…
Energy-dependent patterns in the arrival directions of cosmic rays are searched for using data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. We investigate local regions around the highest-energy cosmic rays with $E \geq 6 \cdot 10^{19}$ eV by analyzing…
We report a measurement of the flux of cosmic rays with unprecedented precision and statistics using data from the Pierre Auger Observatory. Based on fluorescence observations in coincidence with at least one station of the surface detector…
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…
We developed a new method in order to detect and quantify a potential anisotropy in the ultrahigh energy cosmic ray flux. The proposed method is a new statistical tool based upon the percolation process that is used in physics to describe…
Studies of the cosmic ray energy spectrum at the highest energies with the Pierre Auger Observatory
We study the angular power spectrum estimate in order to search for large scale anisotropies in the arrival directions distribution of the highest-energy cosmic rays. We show that this estimate can be performed even in the case of partial…
The sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays are still unknown, but assuming standard physics, they are expected to lie within a few hundred megaparsecs from us. Indeed, over cosmological distances cosmic rays lose energy to interactions…
The Pierre Auger Observatory was designed for a high statistics, full sky study of cosmic rays at the highest energies. Energy, direction and composition measurements are intended to illuminate the mysteries of the most energetic particles…
We review in these notes the status of the construction of the Pierre Auger Observatory and present the first Physics results, based on the data collected during the first year and a half of operation. These results are preliminary, once…
Current experiments collecting high statistics in ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are opening a new window on the universe facing the possibility to perform UHECR astronomy. Here we discuss a large scale structure (LSS) model for the…