Paul Sommers
Pennsylvania State University
Friday, October
17, 2008
4:00 pm in SPL 57
The Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory: the high energy frontier of astroparticle physics
Abstract: The Auger Observatory is opening a new window to the universe using high energy cosmic rays as the messengers. Its southern site in Argentina has been completed this year, covering an area of 3000 km2. The arrival direction and energy are measured for every cosmic ray landing in that area with energy greater than 1018.5 eV. Exciting results have already been derived from data collected during construction. The objective is to identify and study the sources of the highest energy particles in the universe. It should also be possible to extract information about intervening magnetic fields and to deduce properties of hadronic interactions at center-of-mass energies far above that of the LHC. This talk will present possible implications of the recent results as well as the status of the observatory and plans for the future.
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