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Cosmic Rays and the Hunt for Ultra-High-Energy Photons at the the Pierre Auger Observatory
**Introduction**
* The podcast discusses the search for **diffuse photons** with energies above tens of PeV, using data from the **Pierre Auger Observatory**.
* These photons are produced by interactions between cosmic rays and interstellar matter or background radiation.
* The measurement of a diffuse photon flux can help us understand the distribution of cosmic rays in the Galaxy and probe models of super-heavy dark matter.
**The Pierre Auger Observatory**
* The observatory uses a surface detector (SD) and an underground muon detector (UMD).
* The SD array consists of **water-Cherenkov detectors (WCDs)**, and the UMD uses **buried scintillators**.
* The study focuses on data from a 2 km² area with 19 WCDs and 11 UMD stations.
* The combination of SD and UMD measurements allows for a more accurate analysis of air showers.
**The Search for Photons**
* Primary photons are difficult to distinguish from the background of charged cosmic rays.
* Photon-initiated air showers are mostly electromagnetic, while hadron-initiated showers have more muons.
* The analysis uses a **muon content estimator (Mb)** to discriminate between photon and hadron events.
* The study uses **15 months of data** collected during the construction of the array.
* A photon-equivalent energy scale is developed for comparing events initiated by different primary species.
**Results and Implications**
* No photon candidate events were identified in the data.
* Upper limits on the integral photon flux were set between 13.3 and 13.8 km−2 sr−1 yr−1 above tens of PeV.
* These limits are the only ones based on measurements from the **Southern Hemisphere** in this energy domain.
* The analysis extends the Pierre Auger Observatory photon search program to lower energies.
* The results provide constraints on models of super-heavy dark matter.
* Future data from the observatory is expected to improve the upper limit by a factor of ~20.
**Article Reference:**
* A. Abdul Halim et al., Search for a diffuse flux of photons with energies above tens of PeV at the Pierre Auger Observatory, 2024,
Acknowledements: Podcast prepared with Google/NotebookLM. Illustration credits: Pierre Auger Observatory
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By Astro-COLIBRI**Introduction**
* The podcast discusses the search for **diffuse photons** with energies above tens of PeV, using data from the **Pierre Auger Observatory**.
* These photons are produced by interactions between cosmic rays and interstellar matter or background radiation.
* The measurement of a diffuse photon flux can help us understand the distribution of cosmic rays in the Galaxy and probe models of super-heavy dark matter.
**The Pierre Auger Observatory**
* The observatory uses a surface detector (SD) and an underground muon detector (UMD).
* The SD array consists of **water-Cherenkov detectors (WCDs)**, and the UMD uses **buried scintillators**.
* The study focuses on data from a 2 km² area with 19 WCDs and 11 UMD stations.
* The combination of SD and UMD measurements allows for a more accurate analysis of air showers.
**The Search for Photons**
* Primary photons are difficult to distinguish from the background of charged cosmic rays.
* Photon-initiated air showers are mostly electromagnetic, while hadron-initiated showers have more muons.
* The analysis uses a **muon content estimator (Mb)** to discriminate between photon and hadron events.
* The study uses **15 months of data** collected during the construction of the array.
* A photon-equivalent energy scale is developed for comparing events initiated by different primary species.
**Results and Implications**
* No photon candidate events were identified in the data.
* Upper limits on the integral photon flux were set between 13.3 and 13.8 km−2 sr−1 yr−1 above tens of PeV.
* These limits are the only ones based on measurements from the **Southern Hemisphere** in this energy domain.
* The analysis extends the Pierre Auger Observatory photon search program to lower energies.
* The results provide constraints on models of super-heavy dark matter.
* Future data from the observatory is expected to improve the upper limit by a factor of ~20.
**Article Reference:**
* A. Abdul Halim et al., Search for a diffuse flux of photons with energies above tens of PeV at the Pierre Auger Observatory, 2024,
Acknowledements: Podcast prepared with Google/NotebookLM. Illustration credits: Pierre Auger Observatory