Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory

Abstract

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest cosmic ray observatory. Our current exposure reaches nearly 40,000 km${}^2$ str and provides us with an unprecedented quality data set. The performance and stability of the detectors and their enhancements are described. Data analyses have led to a number of major breakthroughs. Among these we discuss the energy spectrum and the searches for large-scale anisotropies. We present analyses of our X${}_{max}$ data and show how it can be interpreted in terms of mass composition. We also describe some new analyses that extract mass sensitive parameters from the 100% duty cycle SD data. A coherent interpretation of all these recent results opens new directions. The consequences regarding the cosmic ray composition and the properties of UHECR sources are briefly discussed.

9 pages, 12 figures, talk given at the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Rio de Janeiro 2013

References in corpus (9)

• EPOS LHC : test of collective hadronization with LHC data
• Hadronic Multiparticle Production at Ultra-High Energies and Extensive Air Showers
• The Pierre Auger Observatory I: The Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum and Related Measurements
• Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The Pierre Auger Observatory II: Studies of Cosmic Ray Composition and Hadronic Interaction models
• The Pierre Auger Observatory III: Other Astrophysical Observations
• Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array: Joint Contributions to the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2015)
• The Pierre Auger Observatory IV: Operation and Monitoring
• Atmospheric Aerosol Attenuation Measurements at the Pierre Auger Observatory

Cited by in corpus (30)

• Combined fit of spectrum and composition data as measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• A large light-mass component of cosmic rays at 10^{17} - 10^{17.5} eV from radio observations
• Are both BL Lacs and pulsar wind nebulae the astrophysical counterparts of IceCube neutrino events?
• Simulations of ultra-high Energy Cosmic Rays in the local Universe and the origin of Cosmic Magnetic Fields
• New constraints on modelling the random magnetic field of the MW
• Internal entrainment and the origin of jet-related broad-band emission in Centaurus A
• Cosmic Ray Models
• Escape model for Galactic cosmic rays and an early extragalactic transition
• A minimal model for extragalactic cosmic rays and neutrinos
• Cosmic Rays from the Ankle to the Cut-Off
• Unified model for cosmic rays above $10^{17}$ eV and the diffuse gamma-ray and neutrino backgrounds
• A new method for reconstructing the muon lateral distribution with an array of segmented counters
• UHECR: Signatures and Models
• The spectra and composition of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays and the measurement of the proton-air cross section
• The current status of orbital experiments for UHECR studies
• The flux suppression at the highest energies
• CRPropa: a public framework to propagate UHECRs in the universe
• CMB B-modes, spinorial space-time and Pre-Big Bang (II)
• A Bayesian analysis of the 69 highest energy cosmic rays detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Inverse problem for extragalactic transport of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
• The role of the Galactic Halo and the Single Source in the formation of the cosmic ray anisotropy
• Cosmic ray acceleration in accretion flows of galaxy clusters
• Data Processing at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Measurement of the chemical composition of the ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• A Bayesian self-clustering analysis of the highest energy cosmic rays detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Impact on Astrophysics and Elementary Particle Physics of recent and future solar neutrino data
• Ensemble fluctuations of the cosmic ray energy spectrum and the intergalactic magnetic field
• Challenges of Relativistic Astrophysics
• Cosmic ray transport and anisotropies to high energies
• Particle Astrophysics with High and Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos