Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Research with the Pierre Auger Observatory: Operation, Data Analysis and Interpretation

位于阿根廷的皮埃尔·俄歇天文台是一个3000平方公里的探测器阵列，其设计和建造目的是记录由大气中的超高能宇宙射线引起的次级粒子簇射。这些宇宙射线的速率低至每平方公里和每世纪1个粒子，在发现它们40年后，仍然不知道它们的起源是什么，它们如何获得巨大的能量以及它们实际上是什么。Pierre Auger天文台将以前所未有的精度和统计数据测量UHE宇宙射线，以回答这些问题。实验的规模被选择为每年捕获约30个UHE颗粒，并使用两种互补技术以获得良好的精度和颗粒识别。利兹和牛津大学的团队为该合作组织带来了广泛的经验，该合作组织由来自17个国家的约250名物理学家组成。

The Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina is a 3000 square kilometre detector array in Argentina that was designed and constructed to record showers of secondary particles, induced by ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The rate of these cosmic rays is as low as 1 particle per square kilometre and century, and, 40 years after their discovery, it is still unknown what their origin is, how they gain their huge energies and what they actually are. The Pierre Auger Observatory will measure UHE cosmic rays with unprecedented precision and statistics to answer exactly those questions. The size of the experiment was chosen to catch about 30 UHE particle per year, and two complementary techniques are used for good precision and particle identification. The Leeds and Oxford groups bring a broad range of experience to the Collaboration which comprises about 250 physicists from 17 countries.