Abstract
A promising energy range to look for angular correlations between cosmic rays of extragalactic origin and their sources is at the highest energies, above a few tens of EeV (1 EeV equivalent to 10(18) eV). Despite the flux of these particles being extremely low, the area of similar to 3000 km(2) covered at the Pierre Auger Observatory, and the 17 yr data-taking period of the Phase 1 of its operations, have enabled us to measure the arrival directions of more than 2600 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays above 32 EeV.
We publish this data set, the largest available at such energies from an integrated exposure of 122,000 km(2) sr yr, and search it for anisotropies over the 3.4 pi steradians covered with the Observatory. Evidence for a deviation in excess of isotropy at intermediate angular scales, with similar to 15 degrees Gaussian spread or similar to 25 degrees top-hat radius, is obtained at the 4 sigma significance level for cosmic-ray energies above similar to 40 EeV.