Related papers: Composition of UHE Cosmic Ray Primaries
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…
We show that the simplest assumptions for the dynamics of particle production allow us to understand the fluxes of hadrons and photons at mountain altitudes as well as the structure of individual events. The analysis requires a heavy…
High-energy cosmic rays are observed indirectly by detecting the extensive air showers initiated in Earth's atmosphere. The interpretation of these observations relies on accurate models of air shower physics, which is a challenge and an…
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…
The role of Horizontal Showers induced by cosmic rays is discussed in detail. A new approach to the calculation of the muon component in horizontal air showers induced by protons, heavier nuclei or photons is presented which allows a simple…
We revisit and extend the analysis supporting a 60 year-old suggestion that cosmic rays air showers resulting from primary particles with energies above 10^{18} eV should be straightforward to detect with radar ranging techniques, where the…
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…
The cosmic ray primary composition in the energy range between 10**15 and 10**16 eV, i.e., around the "knee" of the primary spectrum, has been studied through the combined measurements of the EAS-TOP air shower array (2005 m a.s.l., 10**5…
Cosmic ray data may allow the determination of the proton-air cross section at ultra-high energy. For example, the distribution of the first interaction point in air showers reflects the particle production cross section. As it is not…
The origin and nature of the cosmic rays is still uncertain. However, a big progress has been achieved in recent years due to the good quality data provided by current and recent cosmic-rays observatories. The cosmic ray flux decreases very…
Measurements of cosmic ray particles at energies above E = 5 x 10^{14} eV are performed by large area ground based air shower experiments. Only they provide the collection power required for obtaining sufficient statistics at the low flux…
This analysis aims to determine the mass composition and energy of cosmic rays at energies above 100 TeV based on the lateral distribution of extensive air showers. Here, we propose quite a few air shower observables for reconstructing the…
The nature and origin of ultra-high energy (UHE: reffering to > 10^19 eV) cosmic rays are great mysteries in modern astrophysics. The current theories for their explanation include the so-called "top-down" decay scenarios whose main…
The mass composition of high energy cosmic rays above $10^{17}$ eV is a crucial issue to solve some open questions in astrophysics such as the acceleration and propagation mechanisms. Unfortunately, the standard procedures to identify the…
In this paper we review air shower data related to the mass composition of cosmic rays above 10$^{15}$ eV. After explaining the basic relations between air shower observables and the primary mass and energy of cosmic rays, we present…
Extensive air showers are the result of billions of particle reactions initiated by single cosmic rays at ultra-high energy. Their characteristics are sensitive both to the mass of the primary cosmic ray and to the fine details of hadronic…
The muon charge ratio of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays may provide information to detect the composition of the primary cosmic rays. We propose to extract the charge information of high energy muons in very inclined extensive air showers by…
Observations of cosmic rays have been improving at all energies, with higher statistics and reduced systematics. Fundamental questions remain regarding the origins of cosmic rays both within the Galaxy and in extragalactic sources, and new…
A re-examination of the atmospheric cascade profile of the highest energy cosmic ray is presented. The study includes air-shower simulations considering different cross sections, particle multiplicity and variation of the…
We study the possibility of primary mass estimation for Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR's) using the $X_{max}^{\mu}$ (the height where the number of muons produced on the core of Extensive Air Showers (EAS) is maximum) and the number…