Speaker
Description
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are extremely rare particles of ordinary matter in the Universe, traveling astronomical distances until reaching the Earth’s atmosphere with energies far beyond those obtained at particle accelerators. When primary cosmic rays interact with atmospheric nuclei, cascading extensive air showers of secondary elementary particles are developed. Consequently, the Earth’s atmosphere is used as a natural calorimeter, where particle interactions take place and traces of developed air showers are observed in different media, like on/under-ground, in water and in air. The Pierre Auger Observatory, the world’s largest cosmic ray experiment on Earth, uses complementary and innovative detection techniques for measuring UHECRs in a hybrid mode. The unprecedented measurement statistics obtained so far at the Auger Observatory will be presented, with emphasis on the current upgrade with improved detectors.
