The Auger Observatory was designed to study the highest-energy cosmic rays by measuring the properties of the showers produced in the atmosphere. The most important results are the observation of the ...suppression of the high-energy events due to the GZK effect and the discovery of the angular correlation with nearby extragalactic objects.
Currently the detection of Very High Energy gamma-rays for astrophysics rely on the measurement of the Extensive Air Showers (EAS) either using Cherenkov detectors or EAS arrays with larger field of ...views but also larger energy thresholds. In this talk we present a novel hybrid detector concept for a EAS array with an improved sensitivity in the lower energies (~ 100 GeV). We discuss its main features, capabilities and present preliminary results on its expected perfomances and sensitivities.This wide field of view experiment is planned to be installed at high altitude in South America making it a complementary project to the planned Cherenkov telescope experiments and a powerful tool to trigger further observations of variable sources and to detect transients phenomena.
Current detectors for Very-High-Energy γ-ray astrophysics are either pointing instruments with a small field of view (Cherenkov telescopes), or large field-of-view instruments with relatively large ...energy thresholds (extensive air shower detectors).
In this article, we propose a new hybrid extensive air shower detector sensitive in an energy region starting from about 100 GeV. The detector combines a small water-Cherenkov detector, able to provide a calorimetric measurement of shower particles at ground, with resistive plate chambers which contribute significantly to the accurate shower geometry reconstruction.
A full simulation of this detector concept shows that it is able to reach better sensitivity than any previous gamma-ray wide field-of-view experiment in the sub-TeV energy region. It is expected to detect with a 5σ significance a source fainter than the Crab Nebula in one year at 100 GeV and, above 1 TeV a source as faint as 10% of it.
As such, this instrument is suited to detect transient phenomena making it a very powerful tool to trigger observations of variable sources and to detect transients coupled to gravitational waves and gamma-ray bursts.
The photomultipliers of the Auger Fluorescence Detector Ambrosio, M.; Facal, P.; Kemp, E. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
05/2003, Volume:
504, Issue:
1-3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We describe the system which was built to test the photomultipliers of the Auger Fluorescence Detector. The results obtained on the first batch of about 1000 photomultipliers of the first two ...telescopes are also presented.
The camera of the Pierre Auger Observatory Fluorescence Detector Ambrosio, M; Aramo, C; Bracci, F ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
02/2002, Volume:
478, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The Fluorescence Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory is a set of telescopes which measure the fluorescence light emitted by atmospheric nitrogen stimulated by the cosmic-ray showers. The Camera ...is an array of photomultipliers positioned on the telescope focal surface. We describe the main features of the camera: the hexagonal pixels geometry on the spherical focal surface; the light collectors which complement the photomultipliers; the photomultipliers test.
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