Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays

Abstract

This is a review of the most resent results from the investigation of the Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays, particles of energy exceeding 10${}^{18}$ eV. After a general introduction to the topic and a brief review of the lower energy cosmic rays and the detection methods, the two most recent experiments, the High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) and the Southern Auger Observatory are described. We then concentrate on the results from these two experiments on the cosmic ray energy spectrum, the chemical composition of these cosmic rays and on the searches for their sources. We conclude with a brief analysis of the controversies in these results and the projects in development and construction that can help solve the remaining problems with these particles.

40 pages, 27 figures

References in corpus (22)

• Fermi Large Area Telescope Bright Gamma-ray Source List
• The Astrophysics of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays
• Discrepant hardening observed in cosmic-ray elemental spectra
• Cosmic Rays from the Knee to the Highest Energies
• Trigger and Aperture of the Surface Detector Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Spectrum of Galactic Cosmic Rays Accelerated in Supernova Remnants
• A dip in the UHECR spectrum and the transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays
• Search for Correlations between HiRes Stereo Events and Active Galactic Nuclei
• Measurement of the Flux of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays by the Stereo Technique
• Search for ultra-high energy photons using air showers
• Reconstruction of Longitudinal Profiles of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Showers from Fluorescence and Cherenkov Light Measurements
• Observations of Microwave Continuum Emission from Air Shower Plasmas
• An upper limit on the electron-neutrino flux from the HiRes detector
• Status of QGSJET
• Underground Muon Counters as a Tool for Composition Analyses
• A Model-Independent Method of Determining Energy Scale and Muon Number in Cosmic Ray Surface Detectors
• On the measurement of the proton-air cross section using air shower data
• Applying Shower Development Universality to KASCADE Data
• Geometry reconstruction of fluorescence detectors revisited
• Air Fluorescence Relevant for Cosmic-Ray Detection - Review of Pioneering Measurements
• The Hybrid Activities of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Radio detection of cosmic rays at the southern Auger Observatory

Cited by in corpus (83)

• Measurements of the Cosmic Ray Composition with Air Shower Experiments
• The IceCube high-energy starting event sample: Description and flux characterization with 7.5 years of data
• The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND): Science and Design
• Measurement of the cosmic-ray energy spectrum above $2.5\times 10^{18}$ eV using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Radio detection of Cosmic-Ray Air Showers and High-Energy Neutrinos
• Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays
• A First Search for Cosmogenic Neutrinos with the ARIANNA Hexagonal Radio Array
• Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurement of atmospheric production depth
• Newly-born pulsars as sources of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays
• The Fate of Neutron Star Binary Mergers
• Measurements of longitudinal and transverse momentum distributions for neutral pions in the forward-rapidity region with the LHCf detector
• CRPropa 2.0 -- a Public Framework for Propagating High Energy Nuclei, Secondary Gamma Rays and Neutrinos
• Super Heavy Dark Matter in light of BICEP2, Planck and Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays Observations
• Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory
• On ultra-high energy cosmic ray acceleration at the termination shock of young pulsar winds
• Super-Heavy Dark Matter - Towards Predictive Scenarios from Inflation
• Cosmological Signatures of Superheavy Dark Matter
• Hunting for super-heavy dark matter with the highest-energy cosmic rays
• Catastrophic Production of Slow Gravitinos
• High-Energy Cosmic Rays and the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin Effect
• Results from The Latin American Giant Observatory Space Weather Simulation Chain
• New complex EAS installation of the Tien Shan Mountain Cosmic Ray Station
• On some novel features of the Kerr-Newman-NUT Spacetime
• Transverse momentum distribution and nuclear modification factor of forward neutral pion in proton--lead collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.02$TeV
• Infinite efficiency of collisional Penrose process: Can over-spinning Kerr geometry be the source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos ?
• Anisotropy expectations for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with future high statistics experiments
• Are starburst galaxies a common source of high energy neutrinos and cosmic rays?
• Supernova explosions of massive stars and cosmic rays
• Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic Rays from the "En Caul" Birth of Magnetars
• The ARTI Framework: Cosmic Rays Atmospheric Background Simulations
• The Centaurus A Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic Ray Excess and the Local Extragalactic Magnetic Field
• UHE neutrinos from Pop III stars: concept and constraints
• Possible Emission of Cosmic $X$-- and $\gamma$--rays by Unstable Particles at Late Times
• Search for microwave emission from ultrahigh energy cosmic rays
• Changes in extensive air showers from isotropic Lorentz violation in the photon sector
• White paper on EUSO-SPB2
• Muon bundles as a sign of strangelets from the Universe
• Finite-distance gravitational deflection of massive particles by a rotating black hole in loop quantum gravity
• Simulation of ultra-high energy photon propagation with PRESHOWER 2.0
• Effect of Particle Spin on Trajectory Deflection and Gravitational Lensing
• Strategies for the Follow-up of Gravitational Wave Transients with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Peering into the Milky Way by FAST: III. Magnetic fields in the Galactic halo and farther spiral arms revealed by the Faraday effect of faint pulsars
• Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays & Super-heavy Dark Matter
• On the origin of power-laws in equilibrium
• What is the nature and origin of the highest-energy particles in the universe?
• Simulations for a next-generation UHECR observatory
• Deflection angle with electromagnetic interaction and gravitational-electromagnetic dual lensing
• The MIDAS telescope for microwave detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
• Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays from nearby starburst galaxies
• The spectra and composition of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays and the measurement of the proton-air cross section
• Effect of electric interaction on the deflection and gravitational lensing in the strong field limit
• Multilevel Bayesian framework for modeling the production, propagation and detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
• The Huge Magnetic Toroids in the Milky Way Halo
• Acceleration of ultra-high energy cosmic rays in the early afterglows of gamma-ray bursts: concurrence of jet's dynamics and wave-particle interactions
• Deflection and Gravitational lensing of null and timelike signals in the Kiselev black hole spacetime in the weak field limit
• Cosmic muon flux attenuation methods for superconducting qubit experiments
• A unified model of supernova driven by magnetic monopoles
• Lorentz invariance violation as an explanation of muon excess in Auger data
• On the Physical Nature of the Source of Ultraluminous X-ray Pulsations
• Cosmic Rays at the highest energies
• Bayesian Approach for Counting Experiment Statistics applied to a Neutrino Point Source Analysis
• Constraints on the maximal number of dark degrees of freedom from black hole evaporation, cosmic rays, colliders, and supernovae
• Axionic suppression of plasma wakefield acceleration
• Ultra high energy cosmic rays and possible signature of black strings
• A Bayesian analysis of the 69 highest energy cosmic rays detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Heavy Quark Production in Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions
• Modification of cosmic-ray energy spectra by stochastic acceleration
• Acceleration of charged particles from near-extremal rotating black holes embedded in magnetic fields
• Extremal Kerr white holes as a source of ultra high energy particles
• Deflection of charged massive particles by a four-dimensional charged Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black hole
• Luminosity of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays and bounds on magnetic luminosity of radio-loud active galactic nuclei
• Constraints on the AGN flares as sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays from the Fermi-LAT observations
• Muon bundles from the Universe
• A composition dependent energy scale and the determination of the cosmic ray primary mass in the ankle region
• On Geometric Structure of Point Particles
• A Bayesian self-clustering analysis of the highest energy cosmic rays detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Shocking Signals of Dark Matter Annihilation
• High Energy Neutrinos and Cosmic Rays
• Sources of UHECRs in view of the TUS and JEM-EUSO experiments
• Search for high-energy neutrinos from dust obscured Blazars
• Disentangling the Air Shower Components Using Scintillation and Water Cherenkov Detectors
• A new basic air shower observable sensitive to the cosmic-ray elemental mass
• Prospects of GPGPU in the Auger Offline Software Framework