New Funding for Research at the Pierre Auger Observatory

Where do the highest-energy particles in the universe come from? Scientists from the University of Siegen are investigating this question together with research teams from around the world at the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina. The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR) is continuing its funding of Siegen’s participation in this major international experiment: Over the next three years, the University of Siegen will receive approximately 530,000 euros.

“We are very pleased about this funding. It is an important recognition of our work to date and enables us to continue contributing our expertise in detector electronics, real-time data processing, and data analysis to the world’s leading experiment for researching ultra-high-energy cosmic rays,” says Prof. Dr. Markus Cristinziani of the Department of Physics at the University of Siegen.

At the Pierre Auger Observatory in the Argentine Pampas, scientists from more than a dozen countries are researching what is known as cosmic rays. These are extremely high-energy particles from space that strike the Earth’s atmosphere and trigger large particle showers there. The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world’s largest facility for measuring these air showers.

The University of Siegen has been involved in this international collaborative project for many years.

In the new funding period, the Siegen team’s work will focus primarily on two research areas:

First, the team is developing an AI-based trigger for the radio detection of air showers. The observatory’s radio antennas detect very short-lived signals generated by the particle showers. These signals must be detected quickly and reliably in an environment with numerous interference signals. “Our task is to optimize artificial intelligence methods to the point where they can be directly implemented in high-speed electronics,” explains Prof. Cristinziani. The goal is an intelligent trigger that detects relevant events in real time, thereby further improving the observatory’s measurement capabilities.

A second focus is on the analysis of the measurement data. The scientists in Siegen are searching for ultra-high-energy photons—particles of light with very high energy. These could provide important clues as to which cosmic processes generate the highest-energy particles in the universe. “Especially when considered in conjunction with other messengers from the universe, such as neutrinos or gravitational waves, such photons can be particularly revealing,” says Prof. Dr. Markus Risse.

The Siegen research group is therefore developing, among other things, improved detection methods to detect diffuse signals, possible point sources in the sky, and photons accompanying short-lived cosmic events even more reliably.

This funding enables the University of Siegen to further expand its long-standing expertise in both the advancement of measurement technology and the physical analysis of the data. In this way, the physicists at Siegen are making an important contribution to international research in the field of astroparticle physics.