Telescope Array (TA) is the largest ultrahigh energy cosmic-ray (UHECR) observatory in the Northern Hemisphere. It explores the origin of UHECRs by measuring their energy spectrum, arrival-direction distribution, and mass composition using a surface detector (SD) array covering approximately 700 km and fluorescence detector (FD) stations. TA has found evidence for a cluster of cosmic rays with energies greater than 57 EeV. In order to confirm this evidence with more data, it is necessary to increase the data collection rate. We have begun building an expansion of TA that we call TAx4. In this paper, we explain the motivation, design,more »
Search for point sources of ultra-high-energy photons with the Telescope Array surface detector
Ultra-high-energy (UHE) photons are an important tool for studying the high-energy Universe. A plausible source of photons with exa-eV (EeV) energy is provided by UHE cosmic rays (UHECRs) undergoing the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin process (Greisen 1966; Zatsepin & Kuzmin 1966) or pair production process (Blumenthal 1970) on a cosmic background radiation. In this context, the EeV photons can be a probe of both UHECR mass composition and the distribution of their sources (Gelmini, Kalashev & Semikoz 2008; Hooper, Taylor & Sarkar 2011). At the same time, the possible flux of photons produced by UHE protons in the vicinity of their sources by pion photoproduction or inelastic nuclear collisions would be noticeable only for relatively near sources, as the attenuation length of UHE photons is smaller than that of UHE protons; see, for example, Bhattacharjee & Sigl (2000) for a review. There also exists a class of so-called top-down models of UHECR generation that efficiently produce the UHE photons, for instance by the decay of heavy dark-matter particles (Berezinsky, Kachelriess & Vilenkin 1997; Kuzmin & Rubakov 1998) or by the radiation from cosmic strings (Berezinsky, Blasi & Vilenkin 1998). The search for the UHE photons was shown to be the most sensitive method more »
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10230203
- Journal Name:
- Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Volume:
- 492
- Issue:
- 3
- Page Range or eLocation-ID:
- 3984–3993
- ISSN:
- 1365-2966
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The Cosmic-Ray Composition between 2 PeV and 2 EeV Observed with the TALE Detector in Monocular ModeWe report on a measurement of the cosmic-ray composition by the Telescope Array Low-energy Extension (TALE) air fluorescence detector (FD). By making use of the Cherenkov light signal in addition to air fluorescence light from cosmic-ray (CR)-induced extensive air showers, the TALE FD can measure the properties of the cosmic rays with energies as low as ~2 PeV and exceeding 1 EeV. In this paper, we present results on the measurement of ${X}_{\max }$ distributions of showers observed over this energy range. Data collected over a period of ~4 yr were analyzed for this study. The resulting ${X}_{\max }$ distributionsmore »
-
Abstract Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) is often described by dispersion relations of the form E i 2 = m i 2 + p i 2 +δ i,n E 2+n with delta different based on particle type i , with energy E , momentum p and rest mass m . Kinematics and energy thresholds of interactions are modified once the LIV terms become comparable to the squared masses of the particles involved. Thus, the strongest constraints on the LIV coefficients δ i,n tend to come from the highest energies. At sufficiently high energies, photons produced by cosmic ray interactions as theymore »
-
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole has measured the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux up to ~PeV energies and is starting to identify first point source candidates. The next generation facility, IceCube-Gen2, aims at extending the accessible energy range to EeV in order to measure the continuation of the astrophysical spectrum, to identify neutrino sources, and to search for a cosmogenic neutrino flux. As part of IceCube-Gen2, a radio array is foreseen that is sensitive to detect Askaryan emission of neutrinos beyond ~30 PeV. Surface and deep antenna stations have different benefits in terms of effective area, resolution, andmore »
-
The nature of dark matter, the invisible substance making up over 80% of the matter in the universe, is one of the most fundamental mysteries of modern physics. Ultralight bosons such as axions, axion-like particles, or dark photons could make up most of the dark matter. Couplings between such bosons and nuclear spins may enable their direct detection via nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy: As nuclear spins move through the galactic dark-matter halo, they couple to dark matter and behave as if they were in an oscillating magnetic field, generating a dark-matter–driven NMR signal. As part of the cosmic axionmore »