Cosmic Rays from the Knee to the Ankle

Abstract

Investigations of the energy spectrum as well as the mass composition of cosmic rays in the energy range of PeVto EeV are important for understanding both, the origin of the galactic and the extragalactic cosmic rays. Recently, three modern experimental installations (KASCADE-Grande, IceTop, Tunka-133), dedicated to investigate this primary energy range, have published new results on the all-particle energy spectrum. In this short review these results are presented and the similarities and differences discussed. In addition, the effects of using different hadronic interaction models for interpreting the measured air-shower data will be examined. Finally, a brief discussion on the question if the present results are in agreement or in contradiction with astrophysical models for the transition from galactic to 10 pagesextragalactic origin of cosmic rays completes this paper.

arXiv comment10 pages, proceedings of TAUP 2013 conference

References in corpus (10)

• KASCADE measurements of energy spectra for elemental groups of cosmic rays: Results and open problems
• Discrepant hardening observed in cosmic-ray elemental spectra
• Spectrum of cosmic-ray nucleons and the atmospheric muon charge ratio
• Non-linear screening effects in high energy hadronic interactions
• IceTop: The surface component of IceCube
• Kneelike structure in the spectrum of the heavy component of cosmic rays observed with KASCADE-Grande
• The spectrum of high-energy cosmic rays measured with KASCADE-Grande
• The Tunka-133 EAS Cherenkov light array: status of 2011
• Signatures of the extragalactic cosmic-ray source composition from spectrum and shower depth measurements
• Experimental constraints on the astrophysical interpretation of the cosmic ray Galactic-extragalactic transition region

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Features of the energy spectrum of cosmic rays above $2.5\times 10^{18}$ eV using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays: The Intersection of the Cosmic and Energy Frontiers
• Scaling violation in interaction of cosmic ray hadrons and the nature of the 3 PeV knee in the spectrum of primary cosmic rays
• Model-Stable Universality of the Air Shower Electromagnetic Component: an Approach to Solving the Mass Composition Problem
• On the efficiency of the evaluation of the primary cosmic ray composition using lateral distributions of air shower electromagnetic component