Inference of the Mass Composition of Cosmic Rays with energies between 3 and 100 EeV using the data of the Pierre Auger Observatory and Deep Learning

作者：Berenika Čermáková, Adila Abdul Halim, Pedro Abreu, Marco Aglietta, Ingomar Allekotte, Kévin Almeida Cheminant, Alejandro Almela, Roberto Aloisio, Jaime Alvarez-Muñiz, Antonio Ambrosone, Juan Ammerman Yebra, Luis A. Anchordoqui, Belén Andrada, Luciana Andrade Dourado, Lorenzo Apollonio, Carla Aramo, Enrico Arnone, Juan Carlos Arteaga Velázquez, Pedro Ivo Lembo Silveira de Assis, Gualberto Avila, Emanuele Avocone, Alena Bakalová, Anastasia Yurevna Baluta, Felicia Barbato, Adriel Bartz Mocellin, Jose A. Bellido, Corinne Berat, Mario Edoardo Bertaina, Marta Bianciotto, Peter L. Biermann, Virginia Binet, Kathrin Bismark, Teresa Bister, Jonathan Biteau, Jiří Blažek, Johannes Blümer, Martina Bohacova, Denise Boncioli, Carla Bonifazi, Nataliia Borodai, Jeffrey Brack, P. Gabriel Brichetto Orchera, Florian Lukas Briechle, Antonio Bueno, S. Buitink, Max Büsken, Anthony Bwembya, Karen S. Caballero-Mora, Sergio Cabana-Freire, Lorenzo Caccianiga, Federico Campuzano, Jorge Caraça-Valente, Rossella Caruso, Antonella Castellina, Fernando Catalani, Gabriella Cataldi, L. Cazon, Marcos Cerda, Alessandro Cermenati, Jose Augusto Chinellato, Jiří Chudoba, Ladislav Chytka, Roger W Clay, Agustín Cobos Cerutti, Roberta Colalillo, Rúben Conceição, Giovanni Consolati, Matteo Conte, Fabio Convenga, Diego Correia dos Santos, Pedro J. Costa, Corbin Covault, Markus Cristinziani, Carlo Salvattore Cruz Sanchez, Sergio Dasso, Kai Daumiller, Bruce R. Dawson, Rogerio M. de Almeida, Eric-Teunis de Boone, Beatriz de Errico, Joaquín de Jesús, Sijbrand J. de Jong, João de Mello Neto, Ivan De Mitri, Danelise de Oliveira Franco, Francesco de Palma, V. de Souza, Emanuele De Vito, Antonino Del Popolo, Olivier Deligny, Nikolas Denner, Luca Deval, Armando di Matteo, Carola Dobrigkeit, Juan Carlos D'Olivo, Luis Miguel Domingues Mendes, Qader Dorosti, João C. dos Anjos, Rita Cassia dos Anjos, Jan Ebr, Fiona H. Ellwanger, Ralph Engel, Italo Epicoco, Martin Erdmann, Alberto Etchegoyen, Carmelo Evoli, Heino Falcke, Glennys R. Farrar, Anderson Fauth, Tim Fehler, Fridtjof Feldbusch, Alexandra Fernandes, Mateo Fernandez Alonso, Brian Fick, Juan Manuel Figueira, Paul Filip, Andrej Filipcic, Thomas Fitoussi, Benjamin Flaggs, Tomáš Fodran, Antonio Franco, Milton Freitas, Toshihiro Fujii, Alan Fuster, Cristina Galea, Beatriz Garcia, Chloé Gaudu, Piera Luisa Ghia, Ugo Gregorio Giaccari, Fabian Gobbi, Fernando Gollan, Geraldina Golup, Mariano Gómez Berisso, Primo F. Gómez Vitale, Juan Pablo Gongora, J. M. González, Nicolás Martín González, Dariusz Gora, Alessio Gorgi, Marvin Gottowik, F. Guarino, Germano Guedes, Lukas Gülzow, Steffen Hahn, Petr Hamal, Matías Rolf Hampel, Patricia María Hansen, Violet M. Harvey, Andreas Haungs, Thomas Hebbeker, Carlos Hojvat, Jörg Hörandel, Pavel Horvath, Miroslav Hrabovsky, Tim Huege, Antonio Insolia, Paula Gina Isar, Mohamed Ismaiel, Petr Janecek, Vlastimil Jílek, Karl-Heinz Kampert, Bianca Keilhauer, Abha Khakurdikar, Varada Varma Kizakke Covilakam, Hans Klages, Matthias Kleifges, Jelena Köhler, Frederik Krieger, Margita Kubatova, Norbert Kunka, Bruno L. Lago, Niklas Langner, Nicolas Mendoza Leal, Marcelo Augusto Leigui de Oliveira, Yago Lema-Capeans, Antoine Letessier-Selvon, Isabelle Lhenry-Yvon, Luis LOPES, Jon Paul Lundquist, Manuela Mallamaci, Dusan Mandat, Paul Matthew Mantsch, Federico Maria Mariani, Analisa Mariazzi, Ioana Codrina Maris, Giovanni Marsella, Daniele Martello, Sara Martinelli, Miguel A.J.S. Martins, Hermann-Josef Mathes, James Matthews, Giorgio Matthiae, Eric William Mayotte, Sonja Mayotte, Peter Mazur, Gustavo Medina-Tanco, Janning Meinert, Diego Melo, Alexander Menshikov, Carmen Merx, Stanislav Michal, Maria Isabel Micheletti, Lino Miramonti, Megha Mogarkar, Silvia Mollerach, F. Montanet, Leonel Morejón, Katharine Mulrey, Roberto Mussa, Wilson M. Namasaka, Shefali Negi, Lukas Nellen, Khoa Nguyen, Gabriela Nicora, Marcus Niechciol, Dave Nitz, Dalibor Nosek, Alexander S. Novikov, Vladimír Novotný, Libor Nozka, Achille Nucita, Luis A. Nunez, José Ochoa, Cainã de Oliveira, Leo Östman, Miroslav Palatka, Juan Pallotta, Shayoni Panja, Gonzalo Parente, Therese Paulsen, Jannis Pawlowsky, Miroslav Pech, Jan Pękala, R. Pelayo, Vincent Pelgrims, Edyvânia Emily Pereira Martins, Carmina Pérez Bertolli, Lorenzo Perrone, Sergio Petrera, Camilla Petrucci, Tanguy Pierog, MÁRIO PIMENTA, Manuel Platino, Bjarni Pont, Mohsen Pourmohammad Shahvar, Paolo Privitera, Chaitanya Priyadarshi, Michael Prouza, Krzysztof Pytel, Sven Querchfeld, Julian Rautenberg, Diego Ravignani, João Vítor Reginatto Akim, Alex Reuzki, Jan Řídký, Felix Riehn, Markus Risse, Vincenzo Rizi, Ezequiel Rodríguez, Gonzalo Rodriguez Fernandez, Jorge Rubén Rodriguez Rojo, Simone Rossoni, Markus Roth, Esteban Roulet, Adrian Rovero, Alexandra Saftoiu, Mohit Saharan, Francesco Salamida, Humberto Ibarguen Salazar, Gaetano Salina, Pranav Sampathkumar, Nicolas San Martin, Jose Sanabria Gomez, Federico Andrés Sánchez, Eva Santos, Fred Sarazin, Raul Sarmento, Ricardo Sato, Pierpaolo Savina, Viviana Scherini, Harald Schieler, Martin Schimassek, Michael Schimp, David Schmidt, Olaf Scholten, Harm Schoorlemmer, Petr Schovanek, Frank G. Schröder, J. Schulte, Tobias Schulz, Sergio J Sciutto, Marina Scornavacche, Adrian Sedoski, Srijan Sehgal, Shima Ujjani Shivashankara, Guenter Sigl, Katarína Simkova, Frank Simon, Radomir Smida, Paul Sommers, Ruben Squartini, Maximilian Stadelmaier, Samo Stanič, Jaroslaw Stasielak, Patrick Stassi, Simon Strähnz, Maximilian Straub, Tiina Suomijärvi, A. Daniel Supanitsky, Zuzana Svozilikova, Karolina Syrokvas, Zbigniew Szadkowski, Fedor Tairli, Matteo Tambone, Alex Adrián Reyes Tapia, C. Taricco, Charles Timmermans, Olena Tkachenko, Petr Tobiska, Carlos J. Todero Peixoto, Bernardo Tomé, Andres Travaini, Petr Trávníček, Matias Jorge Tueros, Michael Unger, Rukije Uzeiroska, Lukáš Vaclavek, Martin Vacula, Igor Vaiman, Jose F. Valdés Galicia, Laura Valore, Pim van Dillen, Enrique Varela, Veronika Vašíčková, Adriana Vásquez-Ramírez, Darko Veberic, Indira D. Vergara Quispe, Stef Verpoest, Valerio Verzi, J. Vicha, Sergeï Vorobiov, Jhansi Bhavani Vuta, Clara Keiko Oliveira Watanabe, Alan Watson, Andreas Weindl, Melanie Weitz, Lawrence Wiencke, Henryk Wilczyński, Brian Wundheiler, Bin Yue, Alexey Yushkov, Enrique Zas, Danilo Zavrtanik, Marko Zavrtanik · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.22323/1.485.0095 · 研究领域：Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena、Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena、Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae

Located in Argentina, the Pierre Auger Observatory is the largest cosmic-ray observatory on Earth. The Observatory is a hybrid detector employing different detection principles to observe multiple components of air showers. The core part of the detector is the Surface Detector (SD), which comprises $1600$ water-Cherenkov detectors with $1.5\,\mathrm{km}$ spacing in an area of $3000\,\mathrm{km}^2$. The highly sensitive Fluorescence Detector (FD) overlooks the area above the SD. Since the FD can only operate on nights with good atmospheric conditions and low moon fraction, its duty cycle is limited to approximately 15%. The indirect nature of measurements of the Pierre Auger Observatory poses several challenges. For example, estimating the mass of a primary cosmic ray. The atmospheric depth of the shower maximum $X_\mathrm{max}$ is a mass-sensitive observable. The FD measures the $X_\mathrm{max}$ directly, but the statistic is limited by the duty cycle. On the contrary, the SD of the Pierre Auger Observatory, operating almost at 100% duty cycle, allows for a significant increase in the data. In this contribution, we present the $X_\mathrm{max}$ reconstruction based on deep neural networks that extends the energy range and statistics. We probe the energy evolution of the mean and standard deviation of the reconstructed $X_\mathrm{max}$, which reflects the changes in the mass composition. The features found in the average $X_\mathrm{max}$ rate suggest a heavier and purer mass co...