AMIGA is an extension of the Pierre Auger Observatory that will consist of 85 detector pairs, each one composed of a surface water-Cherenkov detector and a buried muon counter. Each muon counter has ...an area of 30 square meters and is made of scintillator strips, with doped optical fibers glued to them, which guide the light to 64 pixel photomultiplier tubes. The detector pairs are arranged at 433 m and 750 m array spacings. In this paper we present the telecommunications system designed to connect the muon counters with the central data processing system at the observatory campus in Malargue. The telecommunications system consists of a point-to-multipoint radio link designed to connect the 85 muon counters or subscribers to two coordinators located at the Coihueco fluorescence detector building. The link provides TCP/IP remote access to the scintillator modules through router boards installed on each of the surface detectors of AMIGA. This setup provides a flexible LAN configuration for each muon counter connected to a WAN that links all the data generated by the muon counters and the surface detectors to the Central Data Acquisition System, or CDAS, at the observatory campus. We present the design parameters, the proposed telecommunications solution and the laboratory and field tests proposed to guarantee its functioning for the whole data traffic generated between each surface detector and muon counter in the AMIGA array and the CDAS.
AMIGA is an enhancement of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The main goals of AMIGA are to extend the full efficiency range to lower energies of the Observatory and to measure the muon content of ...extensive air showers. Currently, it consists of 61 detector pairs, each one composed of a surface water-Cherenkov detector and a buried muon counter. Prototypes of the muon counter – buried at a depth of 2.25m – were installed at each vertex of a hexagon and at its center with 750m spacing. Each prototype has a detection area of 10m2 segmented in 64 scintillation strips and coupled to a multi-anode PMT through optical fibers. The electronic systems of these prototypes are accessible via a service tube. An electronics interface and control board were designed to extract the data from the counter and to provide a remote control of the system. This article presents the design of the interface and control board and the results and performance during the first AMIGA acquisition period in 2012.
A search for ultra-high energy photons with energies above 1 EeV is performed using nine years of data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory in hybrid operation mode. An unprecedented separation ...power between photon and hadron primaries is achieved by combining measurements of the longitudinal air-shower development with the particle content at ground measured by the fluorescence and surface detectors, respectively. Only three photon candidates at energies 1 - 2 EeV are found, which is compatible with the expected hadron-induced background. Upper limits on the integral flux of ultra-high energy photons of 0.038, 0.010, 0.009, 0.008 and 0.007 km\(^{-2}\) sr\(^{-1}\) yr\(^{-1}\) are derived at 95% C.L. for energy thresholds of 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 EeV. These limits bound the fractions of photons in the all-particle integral flux below 0.14%, 0.17%, 0.42%, 0.86% and 2.9%. For the first time the photon fraction at EeV energies is constrained at the sub-percent level. The improved limits are below the flux of diffuse photons predicted by some astrophysical scenarios for cosmogenic photon production. The new results rule-out the early top-down models \(-\) in which ultra-high energy cosmic rays are produced by, e.g., the decay of super-massive particles \(-\) and challenge the most recent super-heavy dark matter models.
An in-situ calibration of a logarithmic periodic dipole antenna with a frequency coverage of 30 MHz to 80 MHz is performed. Such antennas are part of a radio station system used for detection of ...cosmic ray induced air showers at the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the so-called Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA). The directional and frequency characteristics of the broadband antenna are investigated using a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) carrying a small transmitting antenna. The antenna sensitivity is described by the vector effective length relating the measured voltage with the electric-field components perpendicular to the incoming signal direction. The horizontal and meridional components are determined with an overall uncertainty of 7.4^{+0.9}_{-0.3} % and 10.3^{+2.8}_{-1.7} % respectively. The measurement is used to correct a simulated response of the frequency and directional response of the antenna. In addition, the influence of the ground conductivity and permittivity on the antenna response is simulated. Both have a negligible influence given the ground conditions measured at the detector site. The overall uncertainties of the vector effective length components result in an uncertainty of 8.8^{+2.1}_{-1.3} % in the square root of the energy fluence for incoming signal directions with zenith angles smaller than 60{\deg}.
We present a combined fit of a simple astrophysical model of UHECR sources to both the energy spectrum and mass composition data measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory. The fit has been performed ...for energies above \(5 \cdot 10^{18}\) eV, i.e.~the region of the all-particle spectrum above the so-called "ankle" feature. The astrophysical model we adopted consists of identical sources uniformly distributed in a comoving volume, where nuclei are accelerated through a rigidity-dependent mechanism. The fit results suggest sources characterized by relatively low maximum injection energies, hard spectra and heavy chemical composition. We also show that uncertainties about physical quantities relevant to UHECR propagation and shower development have a non-negligible impact on the fit results.
AMIGA (Auger Muons and Infill for the Ground Array) is an upgrade of the Pierre Auger Observatory designed to extend its energy range of detection and to directly measure the muon content of the ...cosmic ray primary particle showers. The array will be formed by an infill of surface water-Cherenkov detectors associated with buried scintillation counters employed for muon counting. Each counter is composed of three scintillation modules, with a 10 m\(^2\) detection area per module. In this paper, a new generation of detectors, replacing the current multi-pixel photomultiplier tube (PMT) with silicon photo sensors (aka. SiPMs), is proposed. The selection of the new device and its front-end electronics is explained. A method to calibrate the counting system that ensures the performance of the detector is detailed. This method has the advantage of being able to be carried out in a remote place such as the one where the detectors are deployed. High efficiency results, i.e. 98 % efficiency for the highest tested overvoltage, combined with a low probability of accidental counting (\(\sim\)2 %), show a promising performance for this new system.
We report a multi-resolution search for anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory with local zenith angles up to \(80^\circ\) and energies in ...excess of 4 EeV (\(4 \times 10^{18}\) eV). This search is conducted by measuring the angular power spectrum and performing a needlet wavelet analysis in two independent energy ranges. Both analyses are complementary since the angular power spectrum achieves a better performance in identifying large-scale patterns while the needlet wavelet analysis, considering the parameters used in this work, presents a higher efficiency in detecting smaller-scale anisotropies, potentially providing directional information on any observed anisotropies. No deviation from isotropy is observed on any angular scale in the energy range between 4 and 8 EeV. Above 8 EeV, an indication for a dipole moment is captured; while no other deviation from isotropy is observed for moments beyond the dipole one. The corresponding \(p\)-values obtained after accounting for searches blindly performed at several angular scales, are \(1.3 \times 10^{-5}\) in the case of the angular power spectrum, and \(2.5 \times 10^{-3}\) in the case of the needlet analysis. While these results are consistent with previous reports making use of the same data set, they provide extensions of the previous works through the thorough scans of the angular scales.
Simultaneous measurements of air showers with the fluorescence and surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory allow a sensitive search for EeV photon point sources. Several Galactic and ...extragalactic candidate objects are grouped in classes to reduce the statistical penalty of many trials from that of a blind search and are analyzed for a significant excess above the background expectation. The presented search does not find any evidence for photon emission at candidate sources, and combined \(p\)-values for every class are reported. Particle and energy flux upper limits are given for selected candidate sources. These limits significantly constrain predictions of EeV proton emission models from non-transient Galactic and nearby extragalactic sources, as illustrated for the particular case of the Galactic center region.
