Clustering of ultra-high energy cosmic ray arrival directions on medium scales
Résumé
The two-point autocorrelation function of ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) arrival directions has a broad maximum around 25 degrees, combining the data with energies above $4\times 10^{19}$ eV (in the HiRes energy scale) of the HiRes stereo, AGASA, Yakutsk and SUGAR experiments. This signal is not or only marginally present analyzing events of a single experiment, but becomes significant when data from several experiments are added. Both the energy dependence and the angular scale might be interpreted as first signature of the large-scale structure of UHECR sources and of intervening magnetic fields.