Study of the number of muons for ultra-high energy hadronic models in Extensive Air Showers simulations

• Grant number: 21/09492-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2022
• End date: November 30, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Elementary Particle Physics and Fields
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Jose Todero Peixoto
• Grantee: João Victor Silva Mendes
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de Lorena (EEL). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Lorena , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Within Particle Astrophysics, the determination of the mass of the cosmic radiation primary is still one of the open questions. Of the known mass characterizers, the number of muons proves to be one of the most robust possibilities. The muon is considered one of the most stable components throughout the development of a CAE (Extensive Atmospheric Shower) due to the low probability of interaction with the atmosphere and, therefore, this is the characterizer that makes it a potential identifier of the primary mass to ultra-high energy cosmic rays (>10^18 eV).Currently, the qualification of the primary mass is done in terms of mass composition comparing Monte Carlo data with real data.This project aims to analyze and quantify the dependence relationship of the number of muons with high energy hadronic models for simulations of extensive atmospheric showers, as well as to verify a possible saturation of the number of muons, at the ground detector, as a function of the primary mass.