Search for ultra-high energy photons using air showers

Abstract

The observation of photons with energies above 10^18 eV would open a new window in cosmic-ray research, with possible impact on astrophysics, particle physics, cosmology and fundamental physics. Current and planned air shower experiments, particularly the Pierre Auger Observatory, offer an unprecedented opportunity to search for such photons and to complement efforts of multimessenger observations of the universe. We summarize motivation, achievements, and prospects of the search for ultra-high energy photons.

18 pages, 7 figures, invited brief review for Modern Physics Letters A (MPLA)

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Cited by in corpus (30)

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• Ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray bounds on nonbirefringent modified-Maxwell theory
• Lorentz Violation and Ultrahigh-Energy Photons
• KASCADE-Grande Limits on the Isotropic Diffuse Gamma-Ray Flux between 100 TeV and 1 EeV
• Cosmogenic photons as a test of ultra-high energy cosmic ray composition
• Hunting for super-heavy dark matter with the highest-energy cosmic rays
• A search for photons with energies above $2\times 10^{17}$ eV using hybrid data from the low-energy extensions of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• A search for point sources of EeV photons
• Multi-Messenger Physics with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• A targeted search for point sources of EeV photons with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Searches for Ultra-High-Energy Photons at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Simulation of ultra-high energy photon propagation with PRESHOWER 2.0
• Ultra High-Energy Cosmic Ray Observations
• Quantum gravity phenomenology at the dawn of the multi-messenger era -- A review
• Potential sensitivities to Lorentz violation from nonbirefringent modified Maxwell theory of Auger, HESS, and CTA
• Full Monte-Carlo description of the Moscow State University Extensive Air Shower experiment
• Estimates of the cosmic gamma-ray flux at PeV to EeV energies from the EAS-MSU experiment data
• Search for ultra-high energy photons through preshower effect with gamma-ray telescopes: Study of CTA-North efficiency
• Blazar jets as possible sources of ultra-high energy photons: a short review
• Search for UHE Photons from Gravitational Wave Sources with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Search for a diffuse flux of photons with energies above tens of PeV at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Constraints on metastable superheavy dark matter coupled to sterile neutrinos with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Shower formation in the presence of a string-inspired foam in space-time
• Discrepancies in the Monte Carlo simulations of propagation of ultra-high energy cosmic-ray photons in the geomagnetic field
• Lateral distributions of electrons in air showers initiated by ultra-high energy gamma quanta taking into account LPM and geomagnetic field effects
• $F_{\gamma }$: a new observable for photon-hadron discrimination in hybrid air shower events
• A method to calibrate the absolute energy scale of air showers with ultra-high energy photons
• Identifying the nature of high energy Astroparticles
• Towards Searching for Photons with Energies beyond the PeV Range from Galactic PeVatrons