L I P

Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas

L I P

L I P [PARTICLES AND TECHNOLOGY]

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Auger

Collaboration in the Pierre Auger Observatory


// Cosmic rays

Raios cósmicos

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the largest Cosmic Ray detector in the world. It has brought new fundamental insights about the origin and nature of highest-energy cosmic rays. One of the most exciting results is the experimental proof that at the highest energies the cosmic-ray flux is strongly suppressed. However, the mechanism responsible for the suppression is still a subject of debate: are we observing the result of the GZK mechanism, by which the energy of cosmic rays is degraded by their interaction with cosmic microwave background photons in their voyage to Earth, or the exhaustion of cosmic sources? Concerning composition, extensive air shower parameters seem to favour heavy composition, whereas the existence of anisotropies favours a light primary. However, the interactions of ultra high energy cosmic rays with Earth’s atmosphere are still poorly understood, and current measurements of the produced air showers aren’t able to shed light in a myriad of aspects of these interactions.

The Pierre Auger Collaboration is performing an upgrade of the full array and expects to take data at least until 2025. Scintillators are being installed on top of every water Cherenkov detector, the the electronics is being upgrades to a faster one. The aim is to achieve a better knowledge of the different components of air showers. A great effort is being put in the development of next-generation data analyses and hadronic interaction models to attain a good description of showers. The muonic component of the shower plays a particularly important role, as it can probe directly the early stages of the shower development. However, muons are only indirectly accessible even with the upgraded detector, with refined analysis required to separate them from the dominant electromagnetic signals.

A small part of the Auger array will be equipped with additional detectors that will allow for calibration and detailed response studies of the full array. In the last years the LIP team has been deeply involved in the development of the MARTA project, a joint Portugal-Brazil effort to measure directly the muon content at the shower using resistive plate chamber detectors (RPCs) installed beneath the water Cherenkov detectors. Low gas flux RPCs, able to work on a harsh outdoor environment with very little maintenance, were developed at LIP in Coimbra and built in cooperation with São Carlos, Brazil.  The LIP team has also acquired a deep knowledge in shower physics and has developed innovative analyses methods and tools that will allow us to give important contributions in the analysis of the new Auger data.

Group webpage at LIP

// Research Area
Física Experimental de Partículas com aceleradores
Contacts
Group Leader:  
Ruben Conceição



 

  • MARTA electronics optimization
  • Author(s):  Rafaela Martins Gramata
  • Submission:  2023-11-23, Acceptance:  2023-11-23, Publication:  2023-11-23
  • Reference:  LIP-STUDENTS-23-25   View publication

  • A novel method to search for point sources of ultra-high energy neutral particles using spacetime information
  • Author(s):  M.A. Martins, L. Cazon,, R. Conceição,, J. Alvarez-Muñiz, and E. Zas
  • Submission:  , Acceptance:  , Publication:  2023-08-18
  • Reference:  PoS ICRC2023 (2023) 451 - Proceedings of the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2023)   View publication

  • Accessing the forward region of the energy spectrum of leading neutral pions in ultra-high energy proton-air interactions
  • Author(s):  M.A. Martins, L. Cazon, R. Conceição and F. Riehn
  • Submission:  , Acceptance:  , Publication:  2023-08-18
  • Reference:  PoS ICRC2023 (2023) 448 - Proceedings of the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2023)   View publication

  • The muon measurements of Haverah Park and their connection to the muon puzzle
  • Author(s):  L. Cazon, H.P. Dembinski, G. Parente, F. Riehn, A.A. Watson
  • Submission:  , Acceptance:  , Publication:  2023-07-27
  • Reference:  PoS ICRC2023 (2023) 431 - Proceedings of the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2023)   View publication

View all the group publications


  • ANTS
  •  Anger camera-type detector simulation and experimental data processing tools.
  •     website


View all the group publications



Alexandra Fernandes
Minho
PhD student

Bernardo Tomé
Lisboa
Researcher

Eduardo Silva
Lisboa
Undergraduate student

Felix Riehn
Lisboa
Collaborator

Guilherme Neves
Lisboa
Undergraduate student

José Carlos Nogueira
Lisboa
Technician

Lorenzo Cazon
Lisboa
Collaborator

Luís Afonso
Lisboa
PhD student

Luís Lopes
Coimbra
Researcher

Luís Mendes
Lisboa
Technician

Magda Duarte
Minho
Collaborator

Mário Pimenta
Lisboa
Researcher

Miguel Ferreira
Lisboa
Technician

Miguel Martins
Lisboa
PhD student

Milton Freitas
Lisboa
Research student

Patrícia Gonçalves
Lisboa
Researcher

Pedro Abreu
Lisboa
Researcher

Pedro Assis
Lisboa
Researcher

Pedro Costa
Lisboa
PhD student

Pedro Figueiredo
Lisboa
Research student

Pedro Teixeira
Lisboa
PhD student

Raul Sarmento
Minho
Researcher

Ruben Conceição
Lisboa
Researcher

Sofia Andringa
Lisboa
Researcher

Tiago Santos
Lisboa
Undergraduate student

Ulisses Barres
Lisboa
Collaborator

 
 

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