Abstract: The Pierre Auger Observatory is a facility built to detect air showers produced by cosmic rays above 10(17) eV. During clear nights with a low illuminated moon fraction, the UV fluorescence light produced by air showers is recorded by optical telescopes at the Observatory. To correct the observations for variations in atmospheric conditions, atmospheric monitoring is performed at regular intervals ranging from several minutes (for cloud identification) to several hours (for aerosol conditions) to several days (for vertical profiles of temperature, pressure, and humidity). In 2009, the monitoring program was upgraded to allow for additional targeted measurements of atmospheric conditions shortly after the detection of air showers of special interest, e. g., showers produced by very high-energy cosmic rays or showers with atypical longitudinal profiles. The former events are of particular importance for the determination of the energy scale of the Observatory, and the latter are characteristic of unusual air shower physics or exotic primary particle types. The purpose of targeted (or “rapid”) monitoring is to improve the resolution of the atmospheric measurements for such events. In this paper, we report on the implementation of the rapid monitoring program and its current status. The rapid monitoring data have been analyzed and applied to the reconstruction of air showers of high interest, and indicate that the air fluorescence measurements affected by clouds and aerosols are effectively corrected using measurements from the regular atmospheric monitoring program. We find that the rapid monitoring program has potential for supporting dedicated physics analyses beyond the standard event reconstruction.

Abstract: We present the results of an analysis of data recorded at the Pierre Auger Observatory in which we search for groups of directionally-aligned events (or 'multiplets') which exhibit a correlation between arrival direction and the inverse of the energy. These signatures are expected from sets of events coming from the same source after having been deflected by intervening coherent magnetic fields. The observation of several events from the same source would open the possibility to accurately reconstruct the position of the source and also measure the integral of the component of the magnetic field orthogonal to the trajectory of the cosmic rays. We describe the largest multiplets found and compute the probability that they appeared by chance from an isotropic distribution. We find no statistically significant evidence for the presence of multiplets arising from magnetic deflections in the present data.

Abstract: We present the results of searches for dipolar-type anisotropies in different energy ranges above 2.5 x 10(17) eV with the surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory, reporting on both the phase and the amplitude measurements of the first harmonic modulation in the right-ascension distribution. Upper limits on the amplitudes are obtained, which provide the most stringent bounds at present, being below 2% at 99% C.L. for EeV energies. We also compare our results to those of previous experiments as well as with some theoretical expectations.

Abstract: In this paper we introduce the concept of Lateral Trigger Probability (LTP) function, i.e., the probability for an Extensive Air Shower (EAS) to trigger an individual detector of a ground based array as a function of distance to the shower axis, taking into account energy, mass and direction of the primary cosmic ray. We apply this concept to the surface array of the Pierre Auger Observatory consisting of a 1.5 km spaced grid of about 1600 water Cherenkov stations. Using Monte Carlo simulations of ultra-high energy showers the LTP functions are derived for energies in the range between 10(17) and 10(19) eV and zenith angles up to 65 degrees. A parametrization combining a step function with an exponential is found to reproduce them very well in the considered range of energies and zenith angles. The LTP functions can also be obtained from data

Abstract: Combined analyses of the Higgs boson production and decay rates as well as its coupling strengths to vector bosons and fermions are presented. The combinations include the results of the analyses of the H -> gamma gamma, ZZ*, WW*, Z gamma, b (b) over bar, tau tau and μμdecay modes, and the constraints on the associated production with a pair of top quarks and on the off-shell coupling strengths of the Higgs boson. The results are based on the LHC proton-proton collision datasets, with integrated luminosities of up to 4.7 fb(-1) at root s = 7 TeV and 20.3 fb(-1) at root s = 8 TeV, recorded by the ATLAS detector in 2011 and 2012. Combining all production modes and decay channels, the measured signal yield, normalised to the Standard Model expectation, is 1.18(-0.14)(+0.15). The observed Higgs boson production and decay rates are interpreted in a leading-order coupling framework, exploring a wide range of benchmark coupling models both with and without assumptions on the Higgs boson width and on the Standard Model particle content in loop processes. The data are found to be compatible with the Standard Model expectations for a Higgs boson at a mass of 125.36 GeV for all models considered.