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Research on the knee region of cosmic ray by using a novel type of electron–neutron detector array

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Abstract

By accurately measuring composition and energy spectrum of cosmic ray, the origin problem of so called “knee” region (energy >one PeV) can be solved. However, up to the present, the results of the spectrum in the knee region obtained by several previous experiments have shown obvious differences, so they cannot give effective evidence for judging the theoretical models on the origin of the knee. Recently, the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) has reported several major breakthroughs and important results in astro-particle physics field. Relying on its advantages of wide-sky survey, high altitude location and large area detector arrays, the research content of LHAASO experiment mainly includes ultra high-energy gamma-ray astronomy, measurement of cosmic ray spectra in the knee region, searching for dark matter and new phenomena of particle physics at higher energy. The electron and thermal neutron detector (EN-Detector) is a new scintillator detector which applies thermal neutron detection technology to measure cosmic ray extensive air shower (EAS). This technology is an extension of LHAASO. The EN-Detector Array (ENDA) can highly efficiently measure thermal neutrons generated by secondary hadrons so called “skeleton” of EAS. In this paper, we perform the optimization of ENDA configuration, and obtain expectations on the ENDA results, including thermal neutron distribution, trigger efficiency and capability of cosmic ray composition separation. The obtained real data results are consistent with those by the Monte Carlo simulation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Nos. 12320101005, 12373105, U2031103, 12205244, and 11963004) and Hebei Natural Science Foundation (No. A2019207004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Physics, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, 050024, China

    Bing-Bing Li, Shu-Wang Cui, Yao-Hui Qi & Liang-Wei Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xin-Hua Ma, Wei Gao & Li-Qiao Yin

  3. TIANFU Cosmic Ray Research Center, Chengdu, 610000, China

    Xin-Hua Ma, Wei Gao & Li-Qiao Yin

  4. College of Science, Tibet University, Lhasa, 850000, China

    Hao-Kun Chen, Tian-Lu Chen,  Danzengluobu, Hai-Bing Hu, Mao-Yuan Liu, Da-Yu Peng & Heng-Yu Zhang

  5. Key Laboratory of Comic Rays, Ministry of Education, Tibet University, Lhasa, 850000, China

    Hao-Kun Chen, Tian-Lu Chen,  Danzengluobu, Hai-Bing Hu, Mao-Yuan Liu, Da-Yu Peng & Heng-Yu Zhang

  6. Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117312, Russia

    Denis Kuleshov, Kirill Kurinov, Oleg Shchegolev & Yuri Stenkin

  7. School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Hu Liu

  8. School of Management Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Economics and Business, Shijiazhuang, 050061, China

    Ye Liu

  9. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow, 141700, Russia

    Oleg Shchegolev & Yuri Stenkin

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  1. Bing-Bing Li
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  2. Xin-Hua Ma
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Correspondence to Xin-Hua Ma or Shu-Wang Cui.

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Declarations The authors declare that they have no competing interests and there are no conflicts.

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Li, BB., Ma, XH., Cui, SW. et al. Research on the knee region of cosmic ray by using a novel type of electron–neutron detector array. Front. Phys. 19, 44200 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-023-1383-2

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