Air Shower Measurements in Karlsruhe

Abstract

The Karlsruhe multi-detector set-ups KASCADE, KASCADE-Grande, and LOPES aim on measurements of cosmic rays in the energy range of the so called knee between 10^14 eV and 10^18 eV. The multidimensional analysis of the air shower data measured by KASCADE indicates a distinct knee in the energy spectra of light primary cosmic rays and an increasing dominance of heavy ones towards higher energies. This provides, together with the results of large scale anisotropy studies, implications for discriminating astrophysical models of the origin of the knee. To improve the reconstruction quality and statistics at higher energies, where the knee of the heavy primaries is expected at around 100 PeV, KASCADE has been extended by a factor 10 in area to the new experiment KASCADE-Grande. LOPES is located on site of the KASCADE-Grande experiment. It measures radio pulses from extensive air showers with the goal to establish this renewed detection technique for future large scale experiments.