Properties and performance of the prototype instrument for the Pierre Auger Observatory

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION (J. ABRAHAM, ..., A.D. SUPANITSKY, ...)

NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS AND METHODS IN PHYSICS RESEARCH A - ACCELERATORS, SPECTROMETERS, DETECTORS AND ASSOCIATED EQUIPAMENT

Elsevier

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2004 vol. 523 p. 50 - 95

0168-9002

Construction of the first stage of the Pierre Auger Observatory has begun. The aim of the Observatory is to collect unprecedented information about cosmic rays above 10^18 eV. The first phase of the project, the construction and operation of a prototype system, known as the engineering array, has now been completed. It has allowed all of the sub-systems that will be used in the full instrument to be tested under field conditions. In this paper, the properties and performance of these sub-systems are described and their success illustrated with descriptions of some of the events recorded thus far.