Derived Shower and Interaction Parameters, Refined Event Reconstruction

Grieder, Peter K.F.

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-76941-5_10

Peter K.F. Grieder²

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Overview

In this chapter we discuss some of the hidden air shower and hadronic interaction parameters that cannot be extracted reliably directly from experimental data but require detailed simulations for the interpretation. We present experimental methods and the handling of the acquired data to access the relevant parameters, such as the energy and mass of the primary, and the shower age. In this context we also discuss the relationship of the data from the two kinds of surface detectors that are frequently used, the deep water Cherenkov and the plastic scintillation detectors, to the shower parameters under investigation. The complex interrelations of the derived parameters that often lead to ambiguous results are outlined and the methods that include detailed simulations and correlation studies to obtain unique results are summarized. The problem of the height of the first interaction and its effect on shower development is briefly touched. The results that have emerged from these investigations that concern the primary radiation are summarized in Chap. 11. Parameters related to atmospheric Cherenkov, air fluorescence and radio detection of showers are discussed in separate chapters.

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Notes

1.
Optical Cherenkov and fluorescence emission account for a fraction of about 10⁻⁵ to 10⁻⁴ each of the total shower energy, and radio emission for a fraction of about 10⁻⁴.
2.
Note that atmospheric (barometric) conditions affect the shower development, too, (see Chaps. 6, 7 and 17) but we disregard this aspect here.
3.
Gamma ray or electron initiated showers may contain some muons that originate from low cross section photonuclear processes.
4.
Note that there are still no data available from the high rapidity forward region of collider experiments. Forward beam experiments are planned with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, such as CASTOR, LHCf and TOTEM.
5.
The main source of fluctuations of optical Cherenkov measurements is the superimposed fluctuating night sky background brightness.
6.
This is true only if the models are such that particle production remains within reasonable bounds of extrapolated accelerator data. Simulations with realistic models show that actually the location of the quasi mass independent energy loss density within a shower varies slowly with primary energy.
7.
This applies to observations beyond the shower maximum, where the additional interactions contribute fewer new particles than are removed by absorption.
8.
The original calculations show as least mass dependent radial distance from the shower axis a distance of 350–400 m. Subsequent work at higher primary energy suggested that a distance of 500–600 m appears to be more appropriate, and for very large showers core distances \(\geq 600\) m. Recent work shows that for the Auger surface array at \(E_{0}>10^{19}\) eV, the measurements should be made at a core distance of ≈ 1,000 m.
9.
The density calibration at Akeno and AGASA was based on the electron density measured with a spark chamber, and the density ratio between scintillator and spark chamber was found to be 1.1 at ∼100 m from the core (Takeda et al., 2003).
10.
Similar arguments and additional mass sensitive features apply also to the optical photons from the Cherenkov light burst caused by air showers that are briefly mentioned below and in Chap. 7, and discussed in detail in Chap. 16.
11.
For fluorescence detection the shower axis should not strike too close to the detector to avoid an interfering contribution of Cherenkov light.
12.
This effect was also noticed by other authors.
13.
More recent Chacaltaya array layouts are described by Shirasaki et al. (2001); Ogio et al. (2004) and Furuhata et al. (2005).
14.
This applies to the height (or depth) of maximum development of a shower as well.
15.
Due to the very short mean life of charmed particles (\({\approx}10^{-13}\) s), their decay probability is not affected.
16.
At that time there were all-together three underground experiments in operation at KGF (see Chatterjee et al., 1965 and Fig. A.40).

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University of Bern Physikalisches Institut, Sidlerstr. 5, 3012, Bern, Switzerland
Peter K.F. Grieder

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Grieder, P.K. (2010). Derived Shower and Interaction Parameters, Refined Event Reconstruction. In: Extensive Air Showers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-76941-5_10

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