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Handbook of Particle Detection and Imaging pp 593–632Cite as

Indirect Detection of Cosmic Rays

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Abstract

Cosmic rays entering the Earth’s atmosphere interact with the nuclei of air and produce cascades of secondary particles. At high energy (E≳1014eV), these particle cascades are called extensive air showers and provide a means of measuring flux, arrival direction distribution, and elemental composition of cosmic rays. In this article, an introduction to the phenomenology of extensive air showers and parametrizations for their description is given. The concepts and key ideas of detecting extensive air showers are presented and methods for reconstructing the properties of the primary particles are discussed. Several representative experiments are reviewed to illustrate practical implementations of air shower detection concepts. The article concludes with a discussion of open problems and future detection techniques that are currently under development.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks his colleagues from the Pierre Auger, KASCADE-Grande, and LOPES Collaborations with whom he has worked on various subjects covered in this contribution. He is also grateful to Claus Grupen and Andreas Haungs for valuable comments on the manuscript.

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  1. Institut für Kernphysik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Postfach 3640, D-76021, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Ralph Engel

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  1. Department of Physics, Siegen University, Emmy-Noether-Campus, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, 57072, Siegen, Germany

    Claus Grupen

  2. IMNC-UMR 8165 CNRS, Paris 7 and Paris 11 Universities, Orsay Campus, Building 440, 91406, Orsay Cedex, France

    Irène Buvat

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Engel, R. (2012). Indirect Detection of Cosmic Rays. In: Grupen, C., Buvat, I. (eds) Handbook of Particle Detection and Imaging. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13271-1_24

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