No Arabic abstract
This paper reports on the observation of the sidereal large-scale anisotropy of cosmic rays using data collected by the ARGO-YBJ experiment over 5 years (2008$-$2012). This analysis extends previous work limited to the period from 2008 January to 2009 December,near the minimum of solar activity between cycles 23 and 24.With the new data sample the period of solar cycle 24 from near minimum to maximum is investigated. A new method is used to improve the energy reconstruction, allowing us to cover a much wider energy range, from 4 to 520 TeV. Below 100 TeV, the anisotropy is dominated by two wide regions, the so-called tail-in and loss-cone features. At higher energies, a dramatic change of the morphology is confirmed. The yearly time dependence of the anisotropy is investigated. Finally, no noticeable variation of cosmic-ray anisotropy with solar activity is observed for a median energy of 7 TeV.
The combined measurement of the cosmic ray (CR) energy spectrum and anisotropy in their arrival direction distribution needs the knowledge of the elemental composition of the radiation to discriminate between different origin and propagation models. Important information on the CR mass composition can be obtained studying the EAS muon content through the measurement of the CR rate at different zenith angles. In this paper we report on the observation of the anisotropy of galactic CRs at different angular scales with the ARGO-YBJ experiment. We report also on the study of the primary CR rate for different zenith angles. The light component (p+He) has been selected and its energy spectrum measured in the energy range (5 - 200) TeV for quasi-vertical events. With this analysis for the first time a ground-based measurement of the CR spectrum overlaps data obtained with direct methods for more than one energy decade, thus providing a solid anchorage to the CR spectrum measurements carried out by EAS arrays in the knee region. Finally, a preliminary study of the non-attenuated shower component at a zenith angle $theta >$ 70$^{circ}$ (through the observation of the so-called horizantal air showers) is presented.
In this paper we report on the observation of the anisotropy of cosmic ray arrival direction at different angular scales with ARGO-YBJ. Evidence of new few-degree excesses throughout the sky region 195$^{circ}leq$ R.A. $leq$ 315$^{circ}$ is presented for the first time. We report also on the measurement of the light-component (p+He) spectrum of primary cosmic rays in the range 5 - 200 TeV.
The ARGO-YBJ experiment has been in stable data taking for 5 years at the YangBaJing Cosmic Ray Observatory (Tibet, P.R. China, 4300 m a.s.l., 606 g/cm$^2$). With a duty-cycle greater than 86% the detector collected about 5$times $10$^{11}$ events in a wide energy range, from few hundreds GeV up to about 10 PeV. A number of open problems in cosmic ray physics has been faced exploiting different analyses. In this paper we summarize the latest results in cosmic ray physics and in gamma-ray astronomy.
The hadronic interaction of cosmic rays with solar atmosphere can produce high energy gamma rays. The gamma-ray luminosity is correlated both with the flux of primary cosmic rays and the intensity of the solar magnetic field. The gamma rays below 200 GeV have been observed by $Fermi$ without any evident energy cutoff. The bright gamma-ray flux above 100 GeV has been detected only during solar minimum. The only available data in TeV range come from the HAWC observations, however outside the solar minimum. The ARGO-YBJ dataset has been used to search for sub-TeV/TeV gamma rays from the Sun during the solar minimum from 2008 to 2010, the same time period covered by the Fermi data. A suitable model containing the Sun shadow, solar disk emission and inverse-Compton emission has been developed, and the chi-square minimization method was used to quantitatively estimate the disk gamma-ray signal. The result shows that no significant gamma-ray signal is detected and upper limits to the gamma-ray flux at 0.3$-$7 TeV are set at 95% confidence level. In the low energy range these limits are consistent with the extrapolation of the Fermi-LAT measurements taken during solar minimum and are compatible with a softening of the gamma-ray spectrum below 1 TeV. They provide also an experimental upper bound to any solar disk emission at TeV energies. Models of dark matter annihilation via long-lived mediators predicting gamma-ray fluxes > $10^{-7}$ GeV $cm^{-2}$ $s^{-1}$ below 1 TeV are ruled out by the ARGO-YBJ limits.
The ARGO-YBJ detector is an extensive air shower array that has been used to monitor the northern $gamma$-ray sky at energies above 0.3 TeV from 2007 November to 2013 January. In this paper, we present the results of a sky survey in the declination band from $-10^{circ}$ to $70^{circ}$, using data recorded over the past five years. With an integrated sensitivity ranging from 0.24 to $sim$1 Crab units depending on the declination, six sources have been detected with a statistical significance greater than 5 standard deviations. Several excesses are also reported as potential $gamma$-ray emitters. The features of each source are presented and discussed. Additionally, $95%$ confidence level upper limits of the flux from the investigated sky region are shown. Specific upper limits for 663 GeV $gamma$-ray AGNs inside the ARGO-YBJ field of view are reported. The effect of the absorption of $gamma$-rays due to the interaction with extragalactic background light is estimated.