Calibration of the Surface Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

Abstract

The Pierre Auger Observatory is designed to study cosmic rays of the highest energies ($>10^{19}$ eV). The ground array of the Observatory will consist of 1600 water Cherenkov detectors deployed over 3000 km^2. The remoteness and large number of detectors require a robust, automatic self-calibration procedure. It relies on the measurement of the average charge collected by a photomultiplier tube from the Cherenkov light produced by a vertical and central through-going muon determined to 5 - 10% at the detector via a novel rate-based technique and to 3% precision through analysis of histograms of the charge distribution. The parameters needed for the calibration are measured every minute, allowing for an accurate determination of the signals recorded from extensive air showers produced by primary cosmic rays. The method also enables stable and uniform triggering conditions to be achieved.

arXiv comment8 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (1)

• A Water Tank Cerenkov Detector for Very High Energy Astroparticles

Cited by in corpus (34)

• The Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory
• Observation of the suppression of the flux of cosmic rays above 4x10^19eV
• Testing Hadronic Interactions at Ultrahigh Energies with Air Showers Measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Upper limit on the cosmic-ray photon flux above 10^19 eV using the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Trigger and Aperture of the Surface Detector Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The Surface Detector System of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Upper limit on the diffuse flux of UHE tau neutrinos from the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Limit on the diffuse flux of ultra-high energy tau neutrinos with the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurement of atmospheric production depth
• 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
• Reconstruction of inclined air showers detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• A search for ultra-high energy neutrinos in highly inclined events at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Layered water Cherenkov detector for the study of ultra high energy cosmic rays
• The effect of the geomagnetic field on cosmic ray energy estimates and large scale anisotropy searches on data from the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Reconstruction of Events Recorded with the Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Azimuthal asymmetry in the risetime of the surface detector signals of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The ARTI Framework: Cosmic Rays Atmospheric Background Simulations
• Deep learning techniques applied to the physics of extensive air showers
• Measurement of the Depth of Maximum of Air-Shower Profiles with energies between $10^{18.5}$ and $10^{20}$ eV using the Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory and Deep Learning
• MARTA: A high-energy cosmic-ray detector concept with high-accuracy muon measurement
• Calibration of the underground muon detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• First measurements of periodicities and anisotropies of cosmic ray flux observed with a water-Cherenkov detector at the Marambio Antarctic base
• Studies on the response of a water-Cherenkov detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory to atmospheric muons using an RPC hodoscope
• Search for a diffuse flux of photons with energies above tens of PeV at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The gamma/hadron discriminator $LCm$ in realistic air shower array experiments
• A composition dependent energy scale and the determination of the cosmic ray primary mass in the ankle region
• Scaler rates from the Pierre Auger Observatory: a new proxy of solar activity
• Modeling and simulation of the R5912 photomultiplier for the LAGO project
• Azimuthal fluctuations and number of muons at the ground in muon-depleted proton air showers at PeV energies
• An Improved Method of Estimating the Uncertainty of Air-Shower Size at Ultra-High Energies
• Astroparticle Physics at Eastern Colombia
• Contributions of the LAGO Collaboration to the 36th ICRC
• Neutrino Detection with the Surface Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory