Search for upward-going showers with the Pierre Auger Observatory

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION.; S. J. SCIUTTO

Simposio; UHECR 2022; 2022

Gran Sasso Science Institute

Motivated by the ANITA report of pulses compatible with upward-going extensive air showers, wepresent a recent search for such showers using the Pierre Auger Observatory. The dataset, registered using thefluorescence detector of the Observatory, is scanned to identify showers ascending from the ground. Consistentwith the exit angles reported from the first and third ANITA flights, we focus on shower geometries that areincompatible with Standard Model interactions of neutrinos in the Earth. We present the effective area of theObservatory to generic upward-going showers as a function of shower energy and altitude. This can be usedto constrain predictions based on physics beyond Standard Model and the upgoing-shower interpretation of theANITA results. To demonstrate the method, we calculate limits to the production rate of tau leptons near theground emerging under a range of exit angles.