Related papers: Applying Extensive Air Shower Universality to Grou…
Production of muon pairs by high-energy photons in electromagnetic and hadronic showers in atmosphere has been calculated. The effect of muon pair production in hadronic Extensive Air Showers (EAS) is unlikely to be seen by next generation…
An ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) colliding with the Earth's atmosphere gives rise to an Extensive Air Shower (EAS). Due to different charge separation mechanisms within the thin shower front coherent electromagnetic radiation will be…
The composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays is still poorly known and constitutes a very important topic in the field of high-energy astrophysics. Detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays is carried out via the extensive air showers…
We analyse the sensitivity of geosynchrotron radio emission from inclined extensive air showers to the energy and mass of primary cosmic rays. We demonstrate that radio emission measurements at suitable lateral distances can infer both the…
In this article we identify the key elements that govern the propagation of muons from the production in extensive air showers to ground. We describe a model based on simple assumptions that propagates the muons starting from the few…
High-energy cosmic rays are observed indirectly by detecting the extensive air showers initiated in Earth's atmosphere. The interpretation of experimental data relies on accurate modeling of the air shower development. Simulations based on…
The characteristics of extensive air showers are sensitive to the details of hadronic interactions at energies and in kinematic regions beyond those tested by human-made accelerators. Uncertainties on extrapolations of the hadronic…
When high-energy cosmic rays (gamma's, protons, or heavy nuclei) impinge onto the Earth's atmosphere, they interact at high altitude with the air nuclei as targets. By repeated interaction of the secondaries an `extensive air shower' (EAS)…
The mass composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays can be studied from the distributions of the depth of shower maximum and/or the muon shower size. Here, we study the dependence of the mean muon shower size on the depth of shower…
Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray air showers probe particle physics at energies beyond the reach of accelerators. Here we introduce a new method to test hadronic interaction models without relying on the absolute energy calibration, and apply it…
At high energy, cosmic rays can only be studied by measuring the extensive air showers they produce in the atmosphere of the Earth. Although the main features of air showers can be understood within a simple model of successive…
In this paper we study, using Monte Carlo simulations, the possibility to discriminate the mass of the Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) by combining information obtained from the maximum $X_{max}^{\mu}$ of the muon production rate…
The combined data of Fluorescence and Surface Detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory has recently provided the strongest constraints on the validity of predictions from current models of hadronic interactions. The unmodified predictions…
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first we want to introduce a new type of hadronic interaction model (NEXUS), which has a much more solid theoretical basis as, for example, presently used models like QGSJET and VENUS, and ensures…
In view of the current efforts to extend the KASCADE experiment (KASCADE-Grande) for observations of Extensive Air Showers (EAS) of primary energies up to 1 EeV, the features of muon arrival time distributions and their correlations with…
Interpretation of extensive air showers (EAS) experiments results is strongly based on air shower simulations. The latter being based on hadronic interaction models, any new model can help for the understanding of the nature of cosmic rays.…
Simulations show that neutrons are the most abundant component among extensive air shower hadrons. However, multiple neutrons which appear with long delays in neutron monitors nearby the EAS core ('neutron thunder') are mostly not the…
The Pierre Auger Observatory, the world's largest observatory of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR), offers a unique insight into the properties of hadronic interactions occurring in air showers at energies well above those reached at…
Ultra-high energy cosmic rays generate extensive air showers in Earth's atmosphere. A standard approach to reconstruct the energy of an ultra-high energy cosmic rays is to sample the lateral profile of the particle density on the ground of…
The properties of cosmic rays with energies above 10**6 GeV have to be deduced from the spacetime structure and particle content of the air showers which they initiate. In this review we summarize the phenomenology of these giant air…