Speaker
Dr
Charles for the Pierre Auger Collaboration Timmermans
(Nikhef and Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
Description
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world’s largest air-shower detec- tor for cosmic rays with energies above 10^17 eV. Located near the small town of Malargue in Argentina, it consists of an array of about 1660 water Cherenkov detectors in a triangular grid which covers an area of more than 3000 km^2. In total 27 fluorescence telescopes at four sites overlooking the detector array provide an independent and complementary method for air shower detection. In the last decades, measurements performed at the Pierre Auger Observatory have led to considerable progress in understanding the properties of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. In this contribution, a review of recent results from the Pierre Auger Observatory will be given, focussing on the energy spectrum of cosmic rays at the highest energies and their compo- sition. In addition, the ongoing activities to upgrade the detector systems of the Observatory will be discussed. This upgrade, named AugerPrime, aims mainly at impr!
oving the sensitivity of the detector to the mass of the pri- mary cosmic rays through a better measurement of the electromagnetic and muonic components of air showers.
Primary author
Dr
Charles for the Pierre Auger Collaboration Timmermans
(Nikhef and Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
