Observation of inclined EeV air showers with the radio detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

0499619 - FZÚ 2019 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Aab, A. - Abreu, A. - Aglietta, M. - Blažek, Jiří - Boháčová, Martina - Chudoba, Jiří - Ebr, Jan - Juryšek, Jakub - Mandát, Dušan - Palatka, Miroslav - Pech, Miroslav - Prouza, Michael - Řídký, Jan - dos Santos, Eva M. Martins - Schovánek, Petr - Trávníček, Petr - Vícha, Jakub - Yushkov, Alexey … Total 394 authors
Observation of inclined EeV air showers with the radio detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory.
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. Roč. 2018, č. 10 (2018), s. 1-38, č. článku 026. ISSN 1475-7516. E-ISSN 1475-7516
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT LM2015038; GA MŠMT LG15014; GA MŠMT EF16_013/0001402
Grant - others:OP VVV - AUGER-CZ(XE) CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001402
Institutional support: RVO:68378271
Keywords : cosmic ray experiments * cosmic rays detectors * ultra high energy cosmic rays
OECD category: Particles and field physics
Impact factor: 5.524, year: 2018

With the Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we have observed the radio emission from 561 extensive air showers with zenith angles between 60 degrees and 84 degrees. In contrast to air showers with more vertical incidence, these inclined air showers illuminate large ground areas of several km(2) with radio signals detectable in the 30 to 80 MHz band. A comparison of the measured radio-signal amplitudes with Monte Carlo simulations of a subset of 50 events for which we reconstruct the energy using the Auger surface detector shows agreement within the uncertainties of the current analysis. As expected for forward-beamed radio emission undergoing no significant absorption or scattering in the atmosphere, the area illuminated by radio signals grows with the zenith angle of the air shower. Inclined air showers with EeV energies are thus measurable with sparse radio-antenna arrays with grid sizes of a km or more.

Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0291852