Reconstruction of the energy and depth of maximum of cosmic-ray air-showers from LOPES radio measurements

Abstract

LOPES is a digital radio interferometer located at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, which measures radio emission from extensive air showers at MHz frequencies in coincidence with KASCADE-Grande. In this article, we explore a method (slope method) which leverages the slope of the measured radio lateral distribution to reconstruct crucial attributes of primary cosmic rays. First, we present an investigation of the method on the basis of pure simulations. Second, we directly apply the slope method to LOPES measurements. Applying the slope method to simulations, we obtain uncertainties on the reconstruction of energy and depth of shower maximum Xmax of 13% and 50 g/cm^2, respectively. Applying it to LOPES measurements, we are able to reconstruct energy and Xmax of individual events with upper limits on the precision of 20-25% for the primary energy and 95 g/cm^2 for Xmax, despite strong human-made noise at the LOPES site.

16 pages, accepted by Physical Review D

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• The radio emission pattern of air showers as measured with LOFAR - a tool for the reconstruction of the energy and the shower maximum
• The wavefront of the radio signal emitted by cosmic ray air showers
• Measurement of the circular polarization in radio emission from extensive air showers confirms emission mechanisms
• Calibration of the LOFAR low-band antennas using the Galaxy and a model of the signal chain
• Reconstructing air shower parameters with LOFAR using event specific GDAS atmospheres
• Radio Measurements of the Depth of Air-Shower Maximum at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Classification and Recovery of Radio Signals from Cosmic Ray Induced Air Showers with Deep Learning
• Final results of the LOPES radio interferometer for cosmic-ray air showers
• High-Energy Galactic Cosmic Rays (Astro2020 Science White Paper)
• Spatial and temporal structure of EAS reflected Cherenkov light signal
• Precision measurements of cosmic ray air showers with the SKA
• A new basic air shower observable sensitive to the cosmic-ray elemental mass
• Status of air-shower measurements with sparse radio arrays (ARENA 2016)