Air shower fluorescence light simulations
Abstract
A new approach to simulate fluorescence photons produced in extensive air showers is described. A Monte Carlo program based on CORSIKA produces the fluorescence photons for each charged particle in the development of the shower. This method results in a full three-dimensional simulation of the particles in a shower and of the fluorescence light generated in the atmosphere. The photons produced by this program are tracked down to a telescope and the simulation of a particular detector is applied. The differences between this method and one-dimensional approaches are quantitatively determined as a function of the distance between the telescope and the shower core. As a particular application, the maximum distance at which the Auger fluorescence telescope might be able to measure the lateral distribution of a shower is determined as a function of energy.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0311201,
title = {Air shower fluorescence light simulations},
author = {Vitor de Souza and Henrique M. J. Barbosa and Carola Dobrigkeit},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0311201},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
20 pages and 11 figures. This enhanced version corresponds to the one aproved for publication in Astroparticle Physics