Azimuthal fluctuations and number of muons at the ground in muon-depleted proton air showers at PeV energies

Abstract

Muon counting is an effective strategy for discriminating between gamma and hadron-initiated air showers. However, their detection, which requires shielded detectors, is highly expensive and challenging to implement across large, environmentally sensitive areas. This work allowed to establish for the first time that at PeV energies the gamma/hadron discriminator based on the new $LCm$ variable have proton rejection levels of the order of $10^{-4}$, outperforming the discrimination power based on the counting of the number of muons. A thorough examination of muon depleted showers at the PeV energies and the simulation strategy devised to achieve the required $\mathcal{O}(10^6)$ simulated showers is presented.

5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D

References in corpus (6)

• The observation of the Crab Nebula with LHAASO-KM2A for the performance study
• Calibration of the Surface Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Layered water Cherenkov detector for the study of ultra high energy cosmic rays
• The Mercedes water Cherenkov detector
• Calibration of the underground muon detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The gamma/hadron discriminator $LCm$ in realistic air shower array experiments

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Cosmic-Ray Mass Composition around the Knee via Principal Component Analysis