Interpretation of measurements of the number of muons in extensive air shower experiments

Autor(es)

Prado, Raul R. ; Conceicao, Ruben ; Pimenta, Mario ; de Souza, Vitor

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: Astroparticle Physics; v. 83, p. 40-52, OCT 2016.
• Citações Web of Science: 1

Resumo

In this paper we analyze the energy evolution of the muon content of air showers between 10(18.4) and 10(19.6) eV to be able to determine the most likely mass composition scenario from future number of muons measurements. The energy and primary mass evolution of the number of muons is studied based on the Heitler-Matthews model and Monte Carlo simulation of the air shower. A simple model to describe the evolution of the first and second moments of number of muons distributions is proposed and validated. An analysis approach based on the comparison between this model's predictions and data to discriminate among a set of composition scenarios is presented and tested with simulations. It is shown that the composition scenarios can be potentially discriminated under the conditions imposed by the method. The discrimination power of the proposed analysis is stable under systematic changes of the absolute number of muons from model predictions and on the scale of the reconstructed energy. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 10/07359-6 - Estudo dos raios cósmicos de mais altas energias com o Observatório Pierre Auger
• Beneficiário: Carola Dobrigkeit Chinellato
• Linha de fomento: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Temático
• Processo FAPESP: 14/10460-1 - Análise de chuveiros atmosféricos extensos: física de partículas com aceleradores extraterrestres
• Beneficiário: Raul Ribeiro Prado
• Linha de fomento: Bolsas no Brasil - Doutorado
• Processo FAPESP: 14/19946-4 - Nova geração de detectores de múons RPC para medida de raios cósmicos de altíssima energia com grande precisão
• Beneficiário: Carola Dobrigkeit Chinellato
• Linha de fomento: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Regular