Measuring extensive air showers with Cherenkov light detectors of the Yakutsk array: The energy spectrum of cosmic rays

Abstract

The energy spectrum of cosmic rays in the range 10^15 eV to 6*10^19 eV has been studied using the air Cherenkov light detectors of the Yakutsk array. The total flux of photons produced by relativistic electrons (including positrons as well, hereafter) of extensive air showers in the atmosphere is used as the energy estimator of the primary particle initiating a shower. The resultant differential flux of cosmic rays exhibits, in accordance with previous measurements, a knee and ankle features at energies 3*10^15 and ~10^19 eV, respectively. A comparison of observational data with simulations is made in the knee and ankle regions in order to choose the models of galactic and extragalactic components of cosmic rays which describe better the energy spectrum measured.

27 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in New Journal of Physics (Focus Issue)

References in corpus (2)

• Spectrum of cosmic rays, produced in supernova remnants
• Effects of the Energy Error Distribution of Fluorescence Telescopes on the UHECR energy spectrum

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Wide field-of-view Cherenkov telescope for the detection of cosmic rays in coincidence with the Yakutsk extensive air shower array
• Comparing the energy spectra of ultra-high energy cosmic rays measured with EAS arrays
• A minimal width of the arrival direction distribution of ultra-high energy cosmic rays detected with the Yakutsk array
• Large-scale distribution of cosmic rays in right ascension as observed by the Yakutsk array at energies above $10^{18}$ eV
• A method to search for correlations of ultra-high energy cosmic ray masses with the large scale structures in the local galaxy density field
• Demonstrating of Cosmic Ray Characteristics by Estimating the Cherenkov Light Lateral Distribution Function for Yakutsk Array as a Function of the Zenith Angle