Pierre Auger Collaboration(Abraham, J. et al), & Pastor, S. (2010). A study of the effect of molecular and aerosol conditions in the atmosphere on air fluorescence measurements at the Pierre Auger Observatory. Astropart Phys., 33(2), 108–129.
Abstract: The air fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory is designed to perforin calorimetric measurements of extensive air showers created by Cosmic rays of above 10(18) eV. To correct these measurements for the effects introduced by atmospheric fluctuations, the Observatory contains a group Of monitoring instruments to record atmospheric conditions across the detector site, ail area exceeding 3000 km(2). The atmospheric data are used extensively in the reconstruction of air showers, and are particularly important for the correct determination of shower energies and the depths of shower maxima. This paper contains a summary of the molecular and aerosol conditions measured at the Pierre Auger Observatory since the start of regular operations in 2004, and includes a discussion of the impact of these measurements oil air shower reconstructions. Between 10(18) and 10(20) eV, the systematic Uncertainties due to all atmospheric effects increase from 4% to 8% in measurements of shower energy, and 4 g cm(-2) to 8 g cm(-2) in measurements of the shower maximum.
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ANTARES and IceCube Collaborations(Albert, A. et al), Barrios-Marti, J., Coleiro, A., Colomer, M., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., Illuminati, G., et al. (2018). Joint Constraints on Galactic Diffuse Neutrino Emission from the ANTARES and IceCube Neutrino Telescopes. Astrophys. J. Lett., 868(2), L20–7pp.
Abstract: The existence of diffuse Galactic neutrino production is expected from cosmic-ray interactions with Galactic gas and radiation fields. Thus, neutrinos are a unique messenger offering the opportunity to test the products of Galactic cosmic-ray interactions up to energies of hundreds of TeV. Here we present a search for this production using ten years of Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch (ANTARES) track and shower data, as well as seven years of IceCube track data. The data are combined into a joint likelihood test for neutrino emission according to the KRA(gamma) model assuming a 5 PeV per nucleon Galactic cosmic-ray cutoff. No significant excess is found. As a consequence, the limits presented in this Letter start constraining the model parameter space for Galactic cosmic-ray production and transport.
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Pierre Auger Collaboration(Aab, A. et al), & Pastor, S. (2014). Origin of atmospheric aerosols at the Pierre Auger Observatory using studies of air mass trajectories in South America. Atmos. Res., 149, 120–135.
Abstract: The Pierre Auger Observatory is making significant contributions towards understanding the nature and origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. One of its main challenges is the monitoring of the atmosphere, both in terms of its state variables and its optical properties. The aim of this work is to analyse aerosol optical depth tau(a)(z) values measured from 2004 to 2012 at the observatory, which is located in a remote and relatively unstudied area of Pampa Amarilla, Argentina. The aerosol optical depth is in average quite low – annual mean tau(a)(3.5 km) similar to 0.04 – and shows a seasonal trend with a winter minimum – tau(a)(3.5 km) – 0.03 -, and a summer maximum – tau(a)(3.5 km) similar to 0.06 -, and an unexpected increase from August to September tau(a)(35 km) similar to 0.055. We computed backward trajectories for the years 2005 to 2012 to interpret the air mass origin. Winter nights with low aerosol concentrations show air masses originating from the Pacific Ocean. Average concentrations are affected by continental sources (wind-blown dust and urban pollution), whilst the peak observed in September and October could be linked to biomass burning in the northern part of Argentina or air pollution coming from surrounding urban areas.
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Fornengo, N., Lineros, R. A., Regis, M., & Taoso, M. (2014). The isotropic radio background revisited. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 008–36pp.
Abstract: We present an extensive analysis on the determination of the isotropic radio background. We consider six different radio maps, ranging from 22 MHz to 2.3 GHz and covering a large fraction of the sky. The large scale emission is modeled as a linear combination of an isotropic component plus the Galactic synchrotron radiation and thermal bremsstrahlung. Point-like and extended sources are either masked or accounted for by means of a template. We find a robust estimate of the isotropic radio background, with limited scatter among different Galactic models. The level of the isotropic background lies significantly above the contribution obtained by integrating the number counts of observed extragalactic sources. Since the isotropic component dominates at high latitudes, thus making the profile of the total emission flat, a Galactic origin for such excess appears unlikely. We conclude that, unless a systematic offset is present in the maps, and provided that our current understanding of the Galactic synchrotron emission is reasonable, extragalactic sources well below the current experimental threshold seem to account for the majority of the brightness of the extragalactic radio sky.
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Bringmann, T., Donato, F., & Lineros, R. A. (2012). Radio data and synchrotron emission in consistent cosmic ray models. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 01(1), 049–12pp.
Abstract: It is well established that phenomenological two-zone diffusion models of the galactic halo can very well reproduce cosmic-ray nuclear data and the observed antiproton flux. Here, we consider lepton propagation in such models and compute the expected galactic population of electrons, as well as the diffuse synchrotron emission that results from their interaction with galactic magnetic fields. We find models in agreement not only with cosmic ray data but also with radio surveys at essentially all frequencies. Requiring such a globally consistent description strongly disfavors very large (L greater than or similar to 15 kpc) and, even stronger, small (L less than or similar to 1 kpc) effective diffusive halo sizes. This has profound implications for, e.g., in direct dark matter searches.
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