Atmospheric aerosols at the Pierre Auger Observatory and environmental implications

Abstract

The Pierre Auger Observatory detects the highest energy cosmic rays. Calorimetric measurements of extensive air showers induced by cosmic rays are performed with a fluorescence detector. Thus, one of the main challenges is the atmospheric monitoring, especially for aerosols in suspension in the atmosphere. Several methods are described which have been developed to measure the aerosol optical depth profile and aerosol phase function, using lasers and other light sources as recorded by the fluorescence detector. The origin of atmospheric aerosols traveling through the Auger site is also presented, highlighting the effect of surrounding areas to atmospheric properties. In the aim to extend the Pierre Auger Observatory to an atmospheric research platform, a discussion about a collaborative project is presented.

Regular Article, 16 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Description of Atmospheric Conditions at the Pierre Auger Observatory using the Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS)
• Measurement of the Aerosol Phase Function at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Description of Atmospheric Conditions at the Pierre Auger Observatory Using Meteorological Measurements and Models
• Altitude dependence of fluorescence light emission by extensive air showers
• Ramsauer approach to Mie scattering of light on spherical particles

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Monte Carlo simulation of light scattering in the atmosphere and effect of atmospheric aerosols on the point spread function
• Origin of atmospheric aerosols at the Pierre Auger Observatory using studies of air mass trajectories in South America
• Ramsauer approach for light scattering on non-absorbing spherical particles and application to the Henyey-Greenstein phase function
• Impact of Laser Guide Star facilities on neighbouring telescopes: The case of GTC, TMT, VLT and ELT lasers and the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Atmospheric multiple scattering of fluorescence light from extensive air showers and effect of the aerosol size on the reconstruction of energy and depth of maximum
• On the possiblity of using vertically pointing Central Laser Facilities to calibrate the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Atmospheric effects in astroparticle physics experiments and the challenge of ever greater precision in measurements
• Point spread function due to multiple scattering of light in the atmosphere
• Impact of E-ELT laser light on Cherenkov Telescope Array cameras