Abstract
On the basis of the scaling approach and CORSIKA simulations data the radial scale factor of the lateral distribution of electrons in extensive air showers is confirmed as a potentially effective primary mass estimator, and its sensitivity to hadronic interaction model is investigated. It is shown that improved composition results both on average and event-by-event basis can be achieved taking into account the universality property of air shower development expressed by the relation between the radial scale factor and the longitudinal age parameter. The enhancements of such a theoretically motivated tool for an unbiased cosmic ray composition deduction in a wide primary energy range for current and future (multi-)hybrid air shower measurements are discussed.
Highlights
Uncertainties in hadronic physics and chemical composition are two basic obstacles for understanding the origin of very high energy cosmic rays
A physical interpretation of features of the cosmic ray energy spectrum in terms of sources and propagation properties relies on the assumed mass composition while its robust estimation from extensive air shower (EAS) observables interferes with their sensitivity to nuclei interaction models at energies not accessible with accelerators
In this paper we examine the efficiency of the formalism describing the lateral distribution function (LDF) of EAS electrons as a scale-invariant and its dependence on the shower longitudinal development stage, that reflects EAS universality properties, for reducing the uncertainties in the current analysis and for improving the estimation of the mean mass composition at a certain energy or the primary particle type in the case of individual showers
Summary
Uncertainties in hadronic physics and chemical composition are two basic obstacles for understanding the origin of very high energy cosmic rays. Numerous methods and techniques are implemented to infer the mass composition of cosmic rays (e.g. see [1]). They include the analysis of mean values, fluctuations, correlations and even particular features of distributions of different EAS observables such as depth of the shower maximum, muon production depths, total number of electrons and muons at the observation level and local densities far from the shower axis, as well as particle arrival time distributions and the spatial distribution of EAS radio signals. In this paper we examine the efficiency of the formalism describing the lateral distribution function (LDF) of EAS electrons as a scale-invariant and its dependence on the shower longitudinal development stage, that reflects EAS universality properties, for reducing the uncertainties in the current analysis and for improving the estimation of the mean mass composition at a certain energy or the primary particle type in the case of individual showers
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