A Search for Point Sources of EeV Neutrons

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION; M. JOSEBACHUILI

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2012 p. 1 - 11

0004-637X

A thorough search of the sky exposed at the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory reveals no statistically significant excess of events in any small solid angle that would be indicative of a flux of neutral particles from a discrete source. The search covers from −90◦ to +15◦ in declination using four different energy ranges above 1 EeV (1018 eV). The method used in this search is more sensitive to neutrons than to photons. The upper limit on a neutron flux is derived for a dense grid of directions for each of the four energy ranges. These results constrain scenarios for the production of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays in the Galaxy.