Ultra high energy cosmic rays: the highest energy frontier

8th International Workshop on Hadron Physics

De Mello Neto, João R. T.^1

Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal Do Rio de Janeiro, Ilha Do Fundão, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil^1

关键词: Cosmic ray energy spectrum;    Extensive air showers;    Fundamental physics;    Hadronic interactions;    Mass composition;    Pierre Auger observatory;    Primary particles;    Ultra high-energy cosmic rays;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/706/4/042009/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/706/4/042009

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are the highest energy messengers of the present universe, with energies up to 1020eV. Studies of astrophysical particles (nuclei, electrons, neutrinos and photons) at their highest observed energies have implications for fundamental physics as well as astrophysics. The primary particles interact in the atmosphere and generate extensive air showers. 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 review the state-of-the-art in UHECRs detection. We will present the leading experiments Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array and 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 the proton-air cross section.