AERA: the Auger Engineering Radio Array

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION (AUTOR 434 DE 474); M. TUEROS (COAUTOR)

Beijing

Conferencia; 32nd International Cosmic Ray Conference 2011; 2011

Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

The first part of the Auger Engineering Radio Array, presently consisting of 21 radio-detection stations, has been installed in the surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory and in close proximity to the fluorescence detectors Coihueco and HEAT. In the coming years, the number of detection stations will grow to 160 units covering an area of almost 20 square kilometers. AERA is sensitive to radio emission from air showers with an energy threshold of 1017 eV and is being used to study in detail the mechanisms responsible for radio emission in the VHF band. The design of AERA is based on results obtained from prototype setups, with which we investigated triggering methods and different hardware concepts. We present the first data from AERA, including AERA?s first hybrid radio / particle detector events.