2022/12/14 by Nicolás Martín González, González, Nicolás Martín · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Neutrino Physics Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2212.07139
openalex publication_date 2022/12/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the largest astroparticle experiment in operation. Complementary to the measurements of the charged ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays, it provides a very good sensitivity to the detection of UHE photons and neutrinos. Since the photon and neutrino fluxes are correlated to the acceleration mechanisms of charged particles, searches for these neutral particles enhance the multi-messenger understanding of UHE cosmic-ray sources and of transient astrophysical phenomena. In addition, searches for diffuse fluxes may bring information about exotic scenarios such as the decay of hypothetical super-heavy dark matter in the Galactic halo. In this contribution, we present an overview of the current UHE photon and neutrino searches at the Observatory and discuss the most recent results. We report on stringent limits to the UHE photon and neutrino diffuse and point-like fluxes above 1017 eV, which lead to strong constraints on theoretical models describing the nature of dark matter candidates and the sources of the most energetic particles in the Universe.