Related papers: Mass Composition of Cosmic Rays with Combined Surf…
The atmospheric depth where the energy deposit profile of secondary particles from extensive air showers (EAS) reaches its maximum, $X_{\rm max}$, is related to the primary particle mass. The mass composition of the ultra-high energy cosmic…
The composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays is an important issue in astroparticle physics research, and additional experimental results are required for further progress. Here we investigate what can be learned from the statistical…
Atmospheric muons are the most frequently observed form of cosmic radiation. Despite this, the existence of the muon flux component produced in decays of short-lived parent particles, called prompt muon flux still awaits experimental…
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 detemination of the primary cosmic ray mass composition from the longitudinal development of atmospheric cascades is still an open problem. In this work we propose a new method of the multiparametric topological analysis and show that…
Extensive air showers are complex objects, resulting of billions of particle reactions initiated by single cosmic ray at ultra-high-energy. Their characteristics are sensitive both to the mass of the primary cosmic ray and to the details of…
Although recent measurements of the shower profiles of ultra-high energy cosmic rays suggest that they are largely initiated by heavy nuclei, such conclusions rely on hadronic interaction models which have large uncertainties. We…
Radio Cherenkov emission underlines detection of high energy particles via a signal growing like the particle-energy-squared. Cosmic ray-induced electromagnetic showers are a primary application. While many studies have treated the…
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…
A review of several analyses is presented that forces the conclusion that the mass composition of the highest-energy cosmic rays is not proton-dominated. This deduction, combined with the use of a modern hadronic interaction model, should…
The paper describes methods used for the detection of cosmic rays with energies above 10^18 eV (UHECR, UltraHigh Energy Cosmic Rays). It had been anticipated there would be a cutoff in the energy spectrum of primary cosmic rays around 3…
Linsley used the Volcano Ranch array to collect data on the lateral distribution of showers produced by cosmic rays at energies above 10^17 eV. Very precise measurements of the steepness of the lateral distribution function were made on 366…
The Pierre Auger Observatory has been designed to investigate the most energetic particles known, the ultra high energy cosmic rays. The observatory, covering an area of 3000 km^2, combines two different detection techniques to study the…
Most cosmic-ray air shower arrays have focused on detecting electromagnetic shower particles and low energy muons. A few groups (most notably MACRO + EASTOP and SPASE + AMANDA) have studied the high energy muon component of showers.…
Cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere allow for the probing of fundamental interactions at ultra-high energies. We thus obtain limits on strongly coupled new physics models via their imprints on cosmic-ray air showers. Using the Monte…
The extensive air shower (EAS) experiment KASCADE has started data taking at the laboratory site of the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. The major goal is to determine the elemental composition of the primary cosmic ray particles in the energy…
The Earth is continuously showered by charged cosmic ray particles, naturally produced atomic nuclei moving with velocity close to the speed of light. Among these are ultra high energy cosmic ray particles with energy exceeding 5x10^19 eV,…
Cosmic ray data collected by the KASCADE air shower experiment are competitive in terms of quality and statistics with those of modern observatories. We present a novel mass composition analysis based on archival data acquired from 1998 to…
The effect of the geomagnetic Lorentz force on the muon component of extensive air shower (EAS) has been studied in a Monte Carlo generated simulated data sample. This geomagnetic field affects the paths of muons in an EAS, causing a local…
The present experimental status concerning the composition of cosmic rays in the PeV region is reviewed. The results are compared to predictions of contemporary models for the acceleration and propagation of galactic cosmic rays.