2022 report from the Auger-TA working group on UHECR arrival directions

¹ Observatorio Pierre Auger, Av. San Martín Norte 304, 5613 Malargüe, Argentina
² Telescope Array Project, 201 James Fletcher Bldg, 115 S. 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0830, USA

^* Corresponding author: spokespersons@auger.org full author list: https://auger.org/archive/authors_2022_10.html

Published online: 28 April 2023

Abstract

After over 60 years, the powerful engines that accelerate ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) to the formidable energies at which we observe them from Earth remain mysterious. Assuming standard physics, we expect UHECR sources to lie within the local Universe (up to a few hundred Mpc). The distribution of matter in the local Universe is anisotropic, and we expect this anisotropy to be imprinted on the distribution of UHECR arrival directions. Even though intervening intergalactic and Galactic magnetic fields deflect charged UHECRs and can distort these anisotropies, some amount of information on the distribution of the sources is preserved. In this proceedings contribution, we present the results of the joint Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array searches for (a) the largest-scale anisotropies (the harmonic dipole and quadrupole) and (b) correlations with a sample of nearby starburst galaxies and the 2MRS catalogue tracing stellar mass within 250 Mpc. This analysis updates our previous results with the most recent available data, notably with the addition of 3 years of new Telescope Array data. The main finding is a correlation between the arrival directions of 12.1%_−3.1%^+4.5% of UHECRs detected with E ≥ 38 EeV by Auger or with E ≳ 49 EeV by TA and the positions of nearby starburst galaxies on a 15.1°_−3.0°^+4.6° angular scale, with a 4.7σ post-trial significance, up from 4.2σ obtained in our previous study.