Speaker
Dr
João de Mello Neto
(Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
Description
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest cosmic ray observatory. The observatory combines two complementary detection techniques to study the extensive particle showers created by collisions of primary cosmic rays with the atmosphere. Analysis of those showers enables one not only to estimate the energy, direction and most probable mass of the primary cosmic particles, but also to obtain information about the properties of their hadronic interactions at an energy more than one order of magnitude above that accessible with the current highest energy human-made accelerator. In this contribution we will discuss the cosmic ray energy spectrum, searches for directional anisotropy, studies of mass composition, the determination of the number of shower muons (which is sensitive to the shower hadronic interactions), and limits on the fluxes of primary photons and neutrinos.
Primary author
Dr
João de Mello Neto
(Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
