Measuring the muon content of inclined air showers using AERA and the water-Cherenkov detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

Pierre Auger Collaboration, Marvin Gottowik, Stijn Buitink

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Abstract

We present a novel approach for assessing the muon content of inclined air showers based on a combined analysis of the radio emission and particle footprint. We will use the radiation energy reconstructed by the Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) as an energy estimator and estimate the muon number independently with the water-Cherenkov detector array (WCD) of the Pierre Auger Observatory. We focus our analysis on air showers with primary energy above 4 EeV to ensure full efficiency of the WCD with a grid spacing of 1500 m. Over approximately six years of data, we identify a set of 31 high-quality events that are used in the analysis. The estimated muon content in data is compatible with the one for an iron primary as predicted by current-generation hadronic interaction models. This result can be interpreted as a deficit of muons in simulations as a lighter mass composition is expected from X max measurements. Such a muon deficit was already observed in previous analyses of the Auger Collaboration and is now confirmed for the first time with radio data.

Original languageEnglish
Article number033
Number of pages7
JournalProceedings of Science
Volume470
Issue numberarena 2024
Publication statusPublished - 7 Nov 2024
Event10th International Workshop on Acoustic and Radio EeV Neutrino Detection Activities - William Eckhardt Research Center, Chicago
Duration: 11 Jun 2024 → 14 Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The successful installation, commissioning, and operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory would not have been possible without the strong commitment and effort from the technical and administrative staff in Malarg\u00FCe. We are very grateful to the following agencies and organizations for financial support: Argentina \u2013 Comisi\u00F3n Nacional de Energ\u00EDa At\u00F3mica; Agencia Nacional de Promoci\u00F3n Cient\u00EDfica y Tecnol\u00F3gica (ANPCyT); Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient\u00EDficas y T\u00E9cnicas (CONICET); Gobierno de la Provincia de Mendoza; Municipalidad de Malarg\u00FCe; NDM Holdings and Valle Las Le\u00F1as; in gratitude for their continuing cooperation over land access; Australia \u2013 the Australian Research Council; Belgium \u2013 Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS); Research Foundation Flanders (FWO); Brazil \u2013 Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient\u00EDfico e Tecnol\u00F3gico (CNPq); Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (FINEP); Funda\u00E7\u00E3o de Amparo \u00E0 Pesquisa do Estado de Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ); S\u00E3o Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) Grants No. 2019/10151-2, No. 2010/07359-6 and No. 1999/05404-3; Minist\u00E9rio da Ci\u00EAncia, Tecnologia, Inova\u00E7\u00F5es e Comunica\u00E7\u00F5es (MCTIC); Czech Republic \u2013 Grant No. MSMT CR LTT18004, LM2015038, LM2018102, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001402, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/18_046/0016010 and CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_049/0008422; France \u2013 Centre de Calcul IN2P3/CNRS; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Conseil R\u00E9gional Ile-de-France; D\u00E9partement Physique Nucl\u00E9aire et Corpusculaire (PNC-IN2P3/CNRS); D\u00E9partement Sciences de l\u2019Univers (SDU-INSU/CNRS); Institut Lagrange de Paris (ILP) Grant No. LABEX ANR-10LABX-63 within the Investissements d\u2019Avenir Programme Grant No. ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02; Germany \u2013 Bundesministerium f\u00FCr Bildung und Forschung (BMBF); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG); Finanzministerium Baden-W\u00FCrttemberg; Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP); Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren (HGF); Ministerium f\u00FCr Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen; Ministerium f\u00FCr Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst des Landes Baden-W\u00FCrttemberg; Italy \u2013 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN); Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF); Ministero dell\u2019Universit\u00E1 e della Ricerca (MUR); CETEMPS Center of Excellence; Ministero degli Affari Esteri (MAE), ICSC Centro Nazionale di Ricerca in High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing, funded by European Union NextGenerationEU, reference code CN_00000013; M\u00E9xico \u2013 Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnolog\u00EDa (CONACYT) No. 167733; Universidad Nacional Aut\u00F3noma de M\u00E9xico (UNAM); PAPIIT DGAPA-UNAM; The Netherlands \u2013 Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO); Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of SURF Cooperative; Poland \u2013 Ministry of Education and Science, grants No. DIR/WK/2018/11 and 2022/WK/12; National Science Centre, grants No. 2016/22/M/ST9/00198, 2016/23/B/ST9/01635, 2020/39/B/ST9/01398, and 2022/45/B/ST9/02163; Portugal \u2013 Portuguese national funds and FEDER funds within Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade through Funda\u00E7\u00E3o para a Ci\u00EAncia e a Tecnologia (COMPETE); Romania \u2013 Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS-UEFISCDI, contract no. 30N/2023 under Romanian National Core Program LAPLAS VII, grant no. PN 23 21 01 02 and project number PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-0924/TE57/2022, within PNCDI III; Slovenia \u2013 Slovenian Research Agency, grants P1-0031, P1-0385, I0-0033, N1-0111; Spain \u2013 Ministerio de Econom\u00EDa, Industria y Competitividad (FPA2017-85114-P and PID2019-104676GB-C32), Xunta de Galicia (ED431C 2017/07), Junta de Andaluc\u00EDa (SOMM17/6104/UGR, P18-FR-4314) Feder Funds, RENATA Red Nacional Tem\u00E1tica de Astropart\u00EDculas (FPA2015-68783-REDT) and Mar\u00EDa de Maeztu Unit of Excellence (MDM-2016-0692); USA \u2013 Department of Energy, Contracts No. DE-AC02-07CH11359, No. DE-FR02-04ER41300, No. DE-FG02-99ER41107 and No. DE-SC0011689; National Science Foundation, Grant No. 0450696; The Grainger Foundation; Marie Curie-IRSES/EPLANET; European Particle Physics Latin American Network; and UNESCO.

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