Searching for Exotic Event Sequences From the Pierre-Auger Observatory

The Pierre-Auger Observatory is the largest instrument dedicated to the study of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs). The Observatory leverages a hybrid approach combining water-Cherenkov detectors which measure particles at the ground level, and telescopes which measure fluorescence emissions of air-showers. The typical result of observations is uncorrelated, single-event phenomena; however, there has been an observation of one event sequence of UHECR-like signals with shared spatial and temporal characteristics, which we call an Exotic Event Sequence (EES). This project is searching for similar groupings of signals that may prove to be other EESs in order to best characterize the initial sequence as a random coincidence or an event-induced occurrence. This algorithm aims to isolate weak signals with shared characteristics embedded in the larger, high-dimensional dataset and remove stochastic background noise. A variety of methods, including dimensional reduction and clustering techniques, will be explored to determine the most efficient approach. This contribution will present the results of these methods and prepare next steps for future research pertaining to the observed EESs.