Characterisation of the electromagnetic component in ultra-high energy inclined air showers

Abstract

Inclined air showers - those arriving at ground with zenith angle with respect to the vertical theta > 60 deg - are characterised by the dominance of the muonic component at ground which is accompanied by an electromagnetic halo produced mainly by muon decay and muon interactions. By means of Monte Carlo simulations we give a full characterisation of the particle densities at ground in ultra-high energy inclined showers as a function of primary energy and mass composition, as well as for different hadronic models assumed in the simulations. We also investigate the effect of intrinsic shower-to-shower fluctuations in the particle densities.

31 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics

References in corpus (2)

• Signatures of the transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays
• Impact of Uncertainties in Hadron Production on Air-Shower Predictions

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Mean number in highly inclined events
• Measurement of the fluctuations in the number of muons in extensive air showers with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Reconstruction of inclined air showers detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Data-driven estimation of the invisible energy of cosmic ray showers with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above $4\times 10^{18}$ eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• A phenomenological model of the muon density profile on the ground of very inclined air showers
• The center of lateral iso-density contours for inclined cosmic air showers
• Exploiting the geomagnetic distortion of the inclined atmospheric showers