Search for anisotropy at the highest energies with the Pierre Auger Observatory

• Grant number: 16/23050-1
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): March 01, 2017
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Elementary Particle Physics and Fields
• Principal researcher: Marcelo Augusto Leigui de Oliveira
• Grantee: Pedro Rossini Sardelich
• Home Institution: Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas (CCNH). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the largest experiment today for the study of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs). Among the main scientific objectives of the Observatory are the determination of the origin and the study of the characteristics and the cosmic rays interactions with energies above 10^17 eV - such particles are the most energetic known in nature, with energies much higher than the achieved in terrestrial laboratories. However, despite more than one decade of data with unprecedented statistics, it was not possible to identify the sources of UHECRs unequivocally. In principle, due to deflections that cosmic rays undergo when crossing the galactic magnetic fields and extragalactic. However, such deflections can introduce energy-dependent patterns in the arrival directions of the events: it is expected circular dispersions around the sources or linear structures due, respectively, to deflections by turbulent magnetic fields or coherent magnetic fields. In this scientific research work, we will use the data from the Pierre Auger Observatory to study the distributions in the arrival directions of the events to perform a search of such patterns. (AU)