EAS age determination from the study of the lateral distribution of charged particles near the shower axis with the ARGO-YBJ experiment

Abstract

The ARGO-YBJ experiment, a full coverage extensive air shower (EAS) detector located at high altitude (4300 m a.s.l.) in Tibet, China, has smoothly taken data, with very high stability, since November 2007 to the beginning of 2013. The array consisted of a carpet of about 7000 m${}^2$ Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) operated in streamer mode and equipped with both digital and analog readout, providing the measurement of particle densities up to few particles per cm${}^2$. The unique detector features (full coverage, readout granularity, wide dynamic range, etc) and location (very high altitude) allowed a detailed study of the lateral density profile of charged particles at ground very close to the shower axis and its description by a proper lateral distribution function (LDF). In particular, the information collected in the first 10 m from the shower axis have been shown to provide a very effective tool for the determination of the shower development stage ("age") in the energy range 50 TeV - 10 PeV. The sensitivity of the age parameter to the mass composition of primary Cosmic Rays is also discussed.

References in corpus (18)

• On the knee in the energy spectrum of cosmic rays
• QGSJET-II: towards reliable description of very high energy hadronic interactions
• Energy determination in the Akeno Giant Air Shower Array experiment
• The Knee of the Cosmic Hydrogen and Helium Spectrum below 1 PeV Measured by ARGO-YBJ and a Cherenkov Telescope of LHAASO
• Identification of the TeV Gamma-ray Source ARGO J2031+4157 with the Cygnus Cocoon
• Study of the diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Galactic plane with ARGO-YBJ
• Observation of the Cosmic Ray Moon shadowing effect with ARGO-YBJ
• ARGO-YBJ Observation of the Large-scale Anisotropy During the Solar Minimum between Cycles 23 and 24
• Proton-air cross section measurement with the ARGO-YBJ cosmic ray experiment
• 4.5 years multi-wavelength observations of Mrk 421 during the ARGO-YBJ and Fermi common operation time
• Comparison of measured and simulated lateral distributions for electrons and muons with KASCADE
• Crab Nebula: five-year observation with ARGO-YBJ
• The cosmic ray proton plus helium energy spectrum measured by the ARGO-YBJ experiment in the energy range 3-300 TeV
• Measurement of the cosmic ray antiproton/proton flux ratio at TeV energies with the ARGO-YBJ detector
• The analog Resistive Plate Chamber detector of the ARGO-YBJ experiment
• Mean Interplanetary Magnetic Field Measurement Using the ARGO-YBJ Experiment
• Cosmic ray primary mass composition above the knee: deduction from lateral distribution of electrons
• Search for GeV Gamma Ray Bursts with the ARGO-YBJ Detector: Summary of Eight Years of Observations

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Study of longitudinal development of air showers in the knee energy range
• On the efficiency of the evaluation of the primary cosmic ray composition using lateral distributions of air shower electromagnetic component
• The lateral distribution function of cosmic-ray induced air showers studied with the HAWC observatory