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A new air shower array in the Southern Hemisphere looking for the origins of Cosmic rays: the ALPACA experiment

by M. Anzorena, E. de la Fuente, K. Fujita, R. Garcia, K. Goto, Y. Hayashi, K. Hibino, N. Hotta, G. Imaizumi, A. Jimenez-Meza, Y. Katayose, C. Kato, S. Kato, T. Kawashima, K. Kawata, T. Koi, H. Kojima, T. Makishima, Y. Masuda, S. Matsuhashi, M. Matsumoto, R. Mayta, P. Miranda, A. Mizuno, K. Munakata, Y. Nakamura, M. Nishizawa, Y. Noguchi, S. Ogio, M. Ohnishi, S. Okukawa, A. Oshima, M. Raljevich, H. Rivera, T. Saito, T. Sako, T. K. Sako, T. Shibasaki, S. Shibata, A. Shiomi, M. A. Subieta Vasquez, F. Sugimoto, N. Tajima, W. Takano, M. Takita, Y. Tameda, K. Tanaka, R. Ticona, I. Toledano-Juarez, H. Tsuchiya, Y. Tsunesada, S. Udo, R. Usui, G. Yamagashi, K. Yamazaki, Y. Yokoe

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Marcos Anzorena

Abstract

The Tibet AS$\gamma$ experiment successfully detected sub-PeV $\gamma$-rays from the Crab nebula using a Surface Array and underground muon detector. Considering this, we are building in Bolivia a new experiment to explore the Southern Hemisphere, looking for the origins of cosmic rays in our Galaxy. The name of this project is Andes Large area PArticle detector for Cosmic ray physics and Astronomy (ALPACA). A prototype array called ALPAQUITA, with $1/4$ the total area of the full ALPACA, started observations in September $2022$. In this paper we introduce the status of ALPAQUITA and the plans to extend the array. We also report the results of the observation of the moon shadow in cosmic rays.