Anisotropy studies around the galactic centre at EeV energies with the Auger Observatory

• Published in: Astroparticle physics 2007, Vol.27 (4), p.244-253
• Main Authors: Aglietta, M., Allard, D., Allison, P., Alvarez, C., Aramo, C., Arisaka, K., Asch, T., Aublin, J., Ave, M., Barnhill, D., Beatty, J., Bellido, J.A., Berat, C., Biermann, P.L., Billoir, P., Brack, J., Cai, B., Camin, D.V., Capdevielle, J.N., Caruso, R., Castellina, A., Cotti, U., Dagoret-Campagne, S., Darriulat, P., Dawson, B.R., de Carvalho, L.A., de Mello, W.J.M., De Mitri, I., Dobrigkeit, C., Dova, M.T., Erdmann, M., Etchegoyen, A., Fazio, D., Fazzini, N., Fick, B., Filevich, A., Fleck, I., Fulgione, W., Geenen, H., Geranios, A., Giller, M., Gobbi, F., Gomez Albarracin, F., Grassi, V., Hague, J.D., Hamilton, J.C., Harari, D., Harton, J.L., Homola, P., Hörandel, J., Horneffer, A., Knapik, R., Knapp, J., Kusenko, A., Lopez Agüera, A., Mancarella, G., Matthiae, G., Maurin, G., McEwen, M., Melo, D., Menichetti, E., Meurer, Chr, Moreno, E., Muller, M.A., Thi, T. Nguyen, Nitz, D., Nosek, D., Oliveira, L.F.A., Ortiz, M., Patel, M., Perrone, L., Petrov, Y., Pham Ngoc, D., Pierog, T., Prado, L., Řídký, J., Rodriguez, G., Rodriguez Martino, J., Rodriguez Rojo, J., Schüssler, F., Sciutto, S.J., Siffert, B.B., Slater, W., Sommers, P., Spinka, H., Strazzeri, E., Timmermans, C., Todero Peixoto, C.J., Torresi, D., Travnicek, P., Urban, M., van Elewyck, V., Veiga, A., Videla, M., Voyvodic, L., Wainberg, O., Walker, P., Warner, D., Westerhoff, S., Wilczyńska, B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anisotropies; Astrophysics; Cosmic rays; Cosmology and Extra-Galactic Astrophysics; Galactic centre; Physics; Sciences of the Universe
• ISSN: 0927-6505; 1873-2852
• DOI: 10.1016/j.astropartphys.2006.11.002

Data from the Pierre Auger Observatory are analyzed to search for anisotropies near the direction of the Galactic Centre at EeV energies. The exposure of the surface array in this part of the sky is already significantly larger than that of the fore-runner experiments. Our results do not support previous findings of localized excesses in the AGASA and SUGAR data. We set an upper bound on a point-like flux of cosmic rays arriving from the Galactic Centre which excludes several scenarios predicting sources of EeV neutrons from Sagittarius A. Also the events detected simultaneously by the surface and fluorescence detectors (the ‘hybrid’ data set), which have better pointing accuracy but are less numerous than those of the surface array alone, do not show any significant localized excess from this direction.