Auger North: The Pierre Auger Observatory in the Northern Hemisphere

[摘要] Results from Auger South have settled some fundamental issues about ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays and made clear what is needed now to identify the sources of these particles, to uncover the acceleration process, to establish the particle types, and to test hadronic interaction properties at extreme energies. The cosmic rays above 55 EeV are key. Auger North targets this high energy frontier by increasing the collecting power of the Auger Observatory by a factor of eight for those high energy air showers. Particles above about 40 EeV have been shown to be subject to propagation energy loss, as predicted by Greisen, Zatsepin and Kuzmin (GZK) in 1966. Moreover, it is now evident that there is a detectable flux of particles from extragalactic sources within the GZK sphere. The inhomogeneous distribution of matter in the local universe imprints its anisotropy on the arrival directions of cosmic rays above 55 EeV. The challenge is to collect enough of those arrival directions to identify the class of astrophysical accelerators and measure directly the brightest sources. Auger North will increase the event rate from 25 per year to 200 per year and give the Auger Observatory full sky exposure. The Auger Observatory also has the capability to detect UHE photons and neutrinos from discrete sources or from the decays of GZK pions. With the expanded aperture of Auger North, the detection of GZK photons and neutrinos will provide a complementary perspective of the highest energy phenomena in the contemporary universe. Besides being an observatory for UHE cosmic rays, photons, and neutrinos, the Auger Observatory will serve as a laboratory for the study of hadronic interactions with good statistics over a wide range of center-of-mass energies above what can be reached at the LHC. Auger North will provide statistical power at center-of-mass energies above 250 TeV where the alternative extrapolations of hadronic cross sections diverge. Auger North is ready to go. The detection techniques have been proven at Auger South. A small R&D array is being constructed at the Colorado site to test minor modifications of the detector units and the revised communications system. The ASPERA roadmap in Europe has endorsed Auger North and recommended funding during the next five years, after which the available resources will be needed for CTA, KM3NeT, and Megaton. Now is the time to step up to a new level of astroparticle science with a systematic approach to the study of trans-GZK cosmic rays.

[发布日期] 2009-01-01

[学科分类] 物理（综合）

[关键词] 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS;ACCELERATION;ACCELERATORS;ANISOTROPY;APERTURES;COMMUNICATIONS;CROSS SECTIONS;DETECTION;MODIFICATIONS;NEUTRINOS;NORTHERN HEMISPHERE;PHOTONS;PIONS;SKY;STATISTICS;TARGETS;UNIVERSE Astrophysics;Experiment-HEP