No Arabic abstract
With the Surface Detector array (SD) of the Pierre Auger Observatory we can detect neutrinos with energy between $10^{17},$eV and $10^{20},$eV from point-like sources across the sky, from close to the Southern Celestial Pole up to $60^circ$ in declination, with peak sensitivities at declinations around $sim -53^circ$ and $sim+55^circ$, and an unmatched sensitivity for arrival directions in the Northern hemisphere. A search has been performed for highly-inclined air showers induced by neutrinos of all flavours with no candidate events found in data taken between 1 Jan 2004 and 31 Aug 2018. Upper limits on the neutrino flux from point-like steady sources have been derived as a function of source declination. An unrivaled sensitivity is achieved in searches for transient sources with emission lasting over an hour or less, if they occur within the field of view corresponding to the zenith angle range between $60^circ$ and $~95^circ$ where the SD of the Pierre Auger Observatory is most sensitive to neutrinos.
The Pierre Auger Observatory, located in Argentina, provides an unprecedented integrated aperture for the search of photons with energy above 100 PeV. In this contribution recent results are presented including the diffuse search for photons and the directional search for photon point sources. The derived limits are of considerable astrophysical interest: Diffuse limits place severe constraints on top-down models and start to touch the predicted GZK photon flux range while directional limits can exclude the continuation of the electromagnetic flux from measured TeV sources with a significance of more than 5$sigma$. Finally, prospects of neutral particle searches for the upcoming detector upgrade AugerPrime are highlighted.
We derive lower bounds on the density of sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays from the lack of significant clustering in the arrival directions of the highest energy events detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory. The density of uniformly distributed sources of equal intrinsic intensity was found to be larger than $sim (0.06 - 5) times 10^{-4}$ Mpc$^{-3}$ at 95% CL, depending on the magnitude of the magnetic deflections. Similar bounds, in the range $(0.2 - 7) times 10^{-4}$ Mpc$^{-3}$, were obtained for sources following the local matter distribution.
The Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to neutrinos of all flavours above 0.1 EeV. These interact through charged and neutral currents in the atmosphere giving rise to extensive air showers. When interacting deeply in the atmosphere at nearly horizontal incidence, neutrinos can be distinguished from regular hadronic cosmic rays by the broad time structure of their shower signals in the water-Cherenkov detectors. In this paper we present for the first time an analysis based on down-going neutrinos. We describe the search procedure, the possible sources of background, the method to compute the exposure and the associated systematic uncertainties. No candidate neutrinos have been found in data collected from 1 January 2004 to 31 May 2010. Assuming an E^-2 differential energy spectrum the limit on the single flavour neutrino is (E^2 * dN/dE) < 1.74x10^-7 GeV cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1 at 90% C.L. in the energy range 1x10^17 eV < E < 1x10^20 eV.
Results of a search for ultra-high-energy neutrinos with the Pierre Auger Observatory from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506+056 are presented. They were obtained as part of the follow-up that stemmed from the detection of high-energy neutrinos and gamma rays with IceCube, textit{Fermi}-LAT, MAGIC, and other detectors of electromagnetic radiation in several bands. The Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to neutrinos in the energy range from 100 PeV to 100 EeV and in the zenith angle range from $theta=60^circ$ to $theta=95^circ$, where the zenith angle is measured from the vertical direction. No neutrinos from the direction of TXS 0506+056 have been found. The results were analyzed in three periods: One of 6 months around the detection of IceCube-170922A, coinciding with a flare period of TXS 0506+056, a second one of 110 days during which the IceCube collaboration found an excess of 13 neutrinos from a direction compatible with TXS 0506+056, and a third one from 2004 January 1 up to 2018 August 31, over which the Pierre Auger Observatory has been taking data. The sensitivity of the Observatory is addressed for different spectral indices by considering the fluxes that would induce a single expected event during the observation period. For indices compatible with those measured by the IceCube collaboration the expected number of neutrinos at the Observatory is well-below one. Spectral indices as hard as 1.5 would have to apply in this energy range to expect a single event to have been detected.
Neutrinos in the cosmic ray flux with energies near 1 EeV and above are detectable with the Surface Detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory. We report here on searches through Auger data from 1 January 2004 until 20 June 2013. No neutrino candidates were found, yielding a limit to the diffuse flux of ultra-high energy neutrinos that challenges the Waxman-Bahcall bound predictions. Neutrino identification is attempted using the broad time-structure of the signals expected in the SD stations, and is efficiently done for neutrinos of all flavors interacting in the atmosphere at large zenith angles, as well as for Earth-skimming neutrino interactions in the case of tau neutrinos. In this paper the searches for downward-going neutrinos in the zenith angle bins $60^circ-75^circ$ and $75^circ-90^circ$ as well as for upward-going neutrinos, are combined to give a single limit. The $90%$ C.L. single-flavor limit to the diffuse flux of ultra-high energy neutrinos with an $E^{-2}$ spectrum in the energy range $1.0 times 10^{17}$ eV - $2.5 times 10^{19}$ eV is $E_ u^2 dN_ u/dE_ u < 6.4 times 10^{-9}~ {rm GeV~ cm^{-2}~ s^{-1}~ sr^{-1}}$.