On the High Energy Soft Component Near Sea Level

Abstract

As the features of the high energy soft components of cosmic rays have not yet been thoroughly investigated, it is of greet interest to study them at present day, especially in very high energy region (above BeV). To obtain the energy of such high energy electron or photon, the electromagnetic shower theory can be applied. Using an experimental arrangement consisting of GM-counter hodoscopes and an ionization chamber with large area, the pulse height distribution of cosmic-ray showers produced by electrons or photons in lead and iron absorbers of different thickness was measured. The number of shower particles was estimated from the pulse height considering the angular spread of shower particles, and the energy of electrons or photons was obtained from the results of shower theory. The results of the present experiment show that, i) the differential energy spectra can be represented by a power law of the form E -γ , with γ of 2.90 and 2.80 for electrons and photons of 2–20 BeV, respectively, ii) the zenit...