Constraints on the Ultra High Energy Photon flux using inclined showers from the Haverah Park array

Abstract

We describe a method to analyse inclined air showers produced by ultra high energy cosmic rays using an analytical description of the muon densities. We report the results obtained using data from inclined events (60^{\circ}<θ<80^{\circ}) recorded by the Haverah Park shower detector for energies above 10^19 eV. Using mass independent knowledge of the UHECR spectrum obtained from vertical air shower measurements and comparing the expected horizontal shower rate to the reported measurements we show that above 10^19 eV less than 48 % of the primary cosmic rays can be photons at the 95 % confidence level and above 4 X 10^19 eV less than 50 % of the cosmic rays can be photonic at the same confidence level. These limits place important constraints on some models of the origin of ultra high-energy cosmic rays.

45 pages, 25 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Modelling Horizontal Air Showers Induced by Cosmic Rays

Cited by in corpus (47)

• Constrained Simulations of the Magnetic Field in the Local Universe and the Propagation of UHECRs
• Cosmic Rays from the Knee to the Highest Energies
• Upper limit on the cosmic-ray photon flux above 10^19 eV using the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Fluxes and Their Constraints
• Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays
• Upper limit on the cosmic-ray photon fraction at EeV energies from the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The Muon Puzzle in cosmic-ray induced air showers and its connection to the Large Hadron Collider
• Neutrino Clustering in Cold Dark Matter Halos : Implications for Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays
• Search for ultra-high energy photons using air showers
• Super-GZK Photons from Photon-Axion Mixing
• Neutrino Bounds on Astrophysical Sources and New Physics
• Reconstruction of inclined air showers detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Detailed analysis of the decay spectrum of a super-heavy X particle
• Upper limit on the ultra-high-energy photon flux from AGASA and Yakutsk data
• Upper limit on the photon fraction in highest-energy cosmic rays from AGASA data
• Relic neutrino masses and the highest energy cosmic rays
• Cosmic Rays: The Second Knee and Beyond
• High Energy Physics in the Atmosphere: Phenomenology of Cosmic Ray Air Showers
• Cosmic Ray Astronomy
• A Monte Carlo Bayesian Search for the Plausible Source of the Telescope Array Hotspot
• Depth Development of Extensive Air Showers from Muon Time Distributions
• Constraining the fraction of primary gamma rays at ultra-high energies from the muon data of the Yakutsk extensive-air-shower array
• Neutrinos Associated With Cosmic Rays of Top-Down Origin
• A Model-Independent Method of Determining Energy Scale and Muon Number in Cosmic Ray Surface Detectors
• Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above $4\times 10^{18}$ eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Primary Particle Type of the Most Energetic Fly's Eye Air Shower
• Ionization history of the Universe as a test for Super Heavy Dark Matter particles
• SUSY In The Sky: Observing Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Neutralinos
• A phenomenological model of the muon density profile on the ground of very inclined air showers
• The Enigma of the Highest Energy Particles of Nature
• Sensitivity of the Auger Observatory to ultra high energy photon composition through inclined showers
• Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays and de Sitter Vacua
• A new approach to inferring the mass composition of cosmic rays at energies above 10^18 eV
• Pierre Auger Data, Photons, and Top-Down Cosmic Ray Models
• Observations of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
• Zenith angle distribution of cosmic ray showers measured with the Yakutsk array and its application to analysis of arrival directions in equatorial coordinates
• The Passage of Ultrarelativistic Neutralinos through Matter
• Astronomy with ultra high-energy particles
• On the Origin of Cosmic Rays
• On a possible photon origin of the most-energetic AGASA events
• Declination dependence of the cosmic-ray flux at extreme energies
• Probing Physics at Extreme Energies with Cosmic Ultra-High Energy Radiation
• Signals of Very High Energy Neutralinos in Future Cosmic Ray Detectors
• Energy reconstruction of hadron-initiated showers of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
• Astrophysics at the Highest Energy Frontiers
• Restoration of azimuthal symmetry of muon densities in extended air showers
• GZK photons as UHECR above 10${}^{19}$ eV