: Construction of the first stage of the Pierre Auger Observatory has begun. The aim of the Observatory is to collect unprecedented information about cosmic rays above 10(18) eV. The first phase of the project, the construction and operation of a prototype system, known as the engineering array, has now been completed. It has allowed all of the sub-systems that will be used in the full instrument to be tested under field conditions. In this paper, the properties and performance of these sub-systems are described and their success illustrated with descriptions of some of the events recorded thus far. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V

We have observed bottom-charm mesons via the decay mode B-c(+/-) --> J/psi l(+/-)v in 1.8 TeV p (p) over bar collisions using the CDF detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. A fit of background and signal contributions to the J/psi l mass distribution yielded 20.4(-5.5)(+6.2) events from B-c mesons. A fit to the same distribution with background alone was rejected at the level of 4.8 standard deviations. We measured the B-c(+) mass to be 6.40 +/- 0.39(stat) +/- 0.13(syst) GeV/c(2) and the B-c(+) lifetime to be 0.46(-0.16)(+0.18)(stat) +/- 0.03(syst) ps. Our measured yield (production cross section times branching ratio) for B-c(+) --> J/psi l(+)v relative to that for B+ --> J/psi K+ is 0.132(-0.037)(+0.041)(stat) +/- 0.031 (syst)(-0.020)(+0.032)(lifetime)