Speaker
Description
The Pierre Auger Observatory is a hybrid detector designed to study cosmic rays of
the highest energies. With the area of the detector array covering 3000 km2 and with
more than 20 years of runtime, it counts among the cosmic ray experiments with the
highest accumulated exposure worldwide. The Surface Detector (SD) consists of over
1600 autonomously operating Water-Cherenkov-Detectors(WCDs), distributed on a tri-
angular grid with 1500 m spacing. Since some years, the Pierre Auger Collaboration has
pushed to enhance the composition sensitivity of the SD with installation of additional
detectors, such as a radio antenna, and plastic scintillators that are mounted on top of
the WCDs. With these new detection channels, Auger will become much more sensitive
to the mass of hadronic primaries, and be able to test hadronic interaction models with
unparalleled precision.
We present the two methods used to calibrate the surface scintillator detectors at
the Pierre Auger Observatory. While both methods rely on measuring the properties
of muons that impinge on the detector, they will be performed independent of one
another, and achieve different goals. The first method analyzes the distribution of pulse-
heights recorded from muons hitting the scintillators, and is used offline to calibrate
data gathered from extensive air shower events. The second method is currently under
development, and will use a rate-based approach to estimate calibration constants online,
for every station autonomously. This will ultimately enable event detection via the
scintillator detector only, which will greatly enhance the sensitivity of Auger to the
electromagnetic component of extensive air showers.
