Impact of atmospheric effects on the energy reconstruction of air showers observed by the surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory

Abstract

Atmospheric conditions, such as the pressure (P), temperature (T) or air density ($\rho \propto P/T$), affect the development of extended air showers initiated by energetic cosmic rays. We study the impact of the atmospheric variations on the reconstruction of air showers with data from the arrays of surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory, considering separately the one with detector spacings of 1500 m and the one with 750 m spacing. We observe modulations in the event rates that are due to the influence of the air density and pressure variations on the measured signals, from which the energy estimators are obtained. We show how the energy assignment can be corrected to account for such atmospheric effects.

arXiv commentPublished version

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Cited by in corpus (9)

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• Measurement of the cosmic-ray energy spectrum above $2.5\times 10^{18}$ eV using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Large-scale cosmic-ray anisotropies above 4 EeV measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The energy spectrum of cosmic rays beyond the turn-down around $10^{17}$ eV as measured with the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Cosmic-ray anisotropies in right ascension measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Reconstruction of Events Recorded with the Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Testing Hadronic-Model Predictions of Depth of Maximum of Air-Shower Profiles and Ground-Particle Signals using Hybrid Data of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Large-scale cosmic ray anisotropies with 19 years of data from the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The Pierre Auger Observatory Open Data