A new observable in extensive air showers

C. A. García Canal; J. I. Illana; M. Masip; S. J. Sciutto

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arXiv · 1609.04941

A new observable in extensive air showers

C. A. García Canal·J. I. Illana·M. Masip·S. J. Sciutto

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Abstract

We find that the ratio r_{mu e} of the muon to the electromagnetic component of an extended air shower at the ground level provides an indirect measure of the depth X_{max} of the shower maximum. This result, obtained with the air-shower code AIRES, is independent of the hadronic model used in the simulation. We show that the value of r_{mu e} in a particular shower discriminates its proton or iron nature with a 98% efficiency. We also show that the eventual production of forward heavy quarks inside the shower may introduce anomalous values of r_{mu e} in isolated events.

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C. A. García Canal, J. I. Illana, M. Masip, S. J. Sciutto. 2016-09-16. A new observable in extensive air showers. https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.04941

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