A Search for Point Sources of EeV Neutrons

PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION (J. ABRAHAM, ... , A. MARIAZZI, ET AL)

The Astrophysical Journal

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2012 vol. 760 p. 148 - 159

1538-4357

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.