Study of small-scale anisotropy of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays observed in stereo by the high resolution fly's eye detector

Abstract

The High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) experiment is an air fluorescence detector which, operating in stereo mode, has a typical angular resolution of 06 and is sensitive to cosmic rays with energies above 1018 eV. The HiRes cosmic-ray detector is thus an excellent instrument for the study of the arrival directions of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. We present the results of a search for anisotropies in the distribution of arrival directions on small scales (<5°) and at the highest energies (>1019 eV). The search is based on data recorded between 1999 December and 2004 January, with a total of 271 events above 1019 eV. No small-scale anisotropy is found, and the strongest clustering found in the HiRes stereo data is consistent at the 52% level with the null hypothesis of isotropically distributed arrival directions.