Data-driven estimation of the invisible energy of cosmic ray showers with the Pierre Auger Observatory

Abstract

The determination of the primary energy of extensive air showers using the fluorescence detection technique requires an estimation of the energy carried away by particles that do not deposit all their energy in the atmosphere. This estimation is typically made using Monte Carlo simulations and thus depends on the assumed primary particle mass and on model predictions for neutrino and muon production. In this work we present a new method to obtain the invisible energy from events detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory. The method uses measurements of the muon number at ground level, and it allows us to reduce significantly the systematic uncertainties related to the mass composition and the high energy hadronic interaction models, and consequently to improve the estimation of the energy scale of the Observatory.

Published version, 18 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables

References in corpus (6)

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• The Offline Software Framework of the Pierre Auger Observatory
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• Report on Tests and Measurements of Hadronic Interaction Properties with Air Showers
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• The Muon Puzzle in cosmic-ray induced air showers and its connection to the Large Hadron Collider
• 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
• Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays: The Intersection of the Cosmic and Energy Frontiers
• Measurement of the fluctuations in the number of muons in extensive air showers with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Askaryan radiation from neutrino-induced showers in ice
• On the cosmic-ray energy scale of the LOFAR radio telescope
• Determination of the Cosmic-Ray Chemical Composition: Open Issues and Prospects
• Quantum gravity phenomenology at the dawn of the multi-messenger era -- A review
• Hypothetical Lorentz invariance violation and the muon content of extensive air showers
• The Pierre Auger Observatory Open Data
• Characterization of Atmosphere-Skimming Cosmic-Ray Showers in High-Altitude Experiments
• Radio Emission from Atmosphere-Skimming Cosmic Ray Showers in High-Altitude Balloon-Borne Experiments