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Register a new userOn Estimating the Flux of the Brightest Cosmic Ray Source above 57x10^18 eV
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Patrick Younk
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The sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays are not yet known. However, the discovery of anisotropic cosmic rays above 57x10^18 eV by the Pierre Auger Observatory suggests that a direct source detection may soon be possible. The near-future prospects for such a measurement are heavily dependent on the flux of the brightest source. In this work, we show that the flux of the brightest source above 57x10^18 eV is expected to comprise 10% or more of the total flux if two general conditions are true. The conditions are: 1.) the source objects are associated with galaxies other than the Milky Way and its closest neighbors, and 2.) the cosmic ray particles are protons or heavy nuclei such as iron and the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin effect is occurring. The Pierre Auger Observatory collects approximately 23 events above 57x10^18 eV per year. Therefore, it is plausible that, over the course of several years, tens of cosmic rays from a single source will be detected.
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We introduce a method to constrain the characteristic angular size of the brightest cosmic-ray sources observed above 57 times 1018 eV. By angular size of a source, we mean the effective angular extent over which cosmic-rays from that source arrive at earth. The method is based on the small-scale (< 10circ) self-clustering of cosmic-ray arrival directions. The method is applicable to sparse data sets in which strong localizations of CR* directions are not yet observed. We show that useful constraints on the source size can be made in the near future and that these constraints are not strongly dependent on the assumed spatial distribution and luminosity function of the cosmic-ray sources. We suggest that an indication of the source size is quite telling. For example, an indication of the source size can be used to infer limits on the particle charge and intervening magnetic fields (not independently), both of which are not well constrained so far. This is possible because the source size is similar in scale to the magnetic deflection.
We report a measurement of the energy spectrum of cosmic rays for energies above $2.5 {times} 10^{18}~$eV based on 215,030 events recorded with zenith angles below $60^circ$. A key feature of the work is that the estimates of the energies are independent of assumptions about the unknown hadronic physics or of the primary mass composition. The measurement is the most precise made hitherto with the accumulated exposure being so large that the measurements of the flux are dominated by systematic uncertainties except at energies above $5 {times} 10^{19}~$eV. The principal conclusions are: (1) The flattening of the spectrum near $5 {times} 10^{18}~$eV, the so-called ankle, is confirmed. (2) The steepening of the spectrum at around $5 {times} 10^{19}~$eV is confirmed. (3) A new feature has been identified in the spectrum: in the region above the ankle the spectral index $gamma$ of the particle flux ($propto E^{-gamma}$) changes from $2.51 pm 0.03~{rm (stat.)} pm 0.05~{rm (sys.)}$ to $3.05 pm 0.05~{rm (stat.)} pm 0.10~{rm (sys.)}$ before changing sharply to $5.1 pm 0.3~{rm (stat.)} pm 0.1~{rm (sys.)}$ above $5 {times} 10^{19}~$eV. (4) No evidence for any dependence of the spectrum on declination has been found other than a mild excess from the Southern Hemisphere that is consistent with the anisotropy observed above $8 {times} 10^{18}~$eV.
The amplitude and phase of the cosmic ray anisotropy are well established experimentally between 10^{11} eV and 10^{14} eV. The study of their evolution into the energy region 10^{14}-10^{16} eV can provide a significant tool for the understanding of the steepening (knee) of the primary spectrum. In this letter we extend the EAS-TOP measurement performed at E_0 around 10^{14} eV, to higher energies by using the full data set (8 years of data taking). Results derived at about 10^{14} and 4x10^{14} eV are compared and discussed. Hints of increasing amplitude and change of phase above 10^{14} eV are reported. The significance of the observation for the understanding of cosmic ray propagation is discussed.
Comparing the signals measured by the surface and underground scintillator detectors of the Yakutsk Extensive Air Shower Array, we place upper limits on the integral flux and the fraction of primary cosmic-ray photons with energies E > 10^18 eV, E > 2*10^18 eV and E > 4*10^18 eV. The large collected statistics of the showers measured by large-area muon detectors provides a sensitivity to photon fractions < 10^-2, thus achieving precision previously unreachable at ultra-high energies.
We present the results of the search for ultra-high-energy photons with nine years of data from the Telescope Array surface detector. A multivariate classifier is built upon 16 reconstructed parameters of the extensive air shower. These parameters are related to the curvature and the width of the shower front, the steepness of the lateral distribution function, and the timing parameters of the waveforms sensitive to the shower muon content. A total number of two photon candidates found in the search is fully compatible with the expected background. The $95%,$CL limits on the diffuse flux of the photons with energies greater than $10^{18.0}$, $10^{18.5}$, $10^{19.0}$, $10^{19.5}$ and $10^{20.0}$ eV are set at the level of $0.067$, $0.012$, $0.0036$, $0.0013$, $0.0013~mbox{km}^{-2}mbox{yr}^{-1}mbox{sr}^{-1}$ correspondingly.
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