PoS - Proceedings of Science
Volume 301 - 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2017) - Session Cosmic-Ray Indirect. CRI-properties of CRs at high energies (anisotropy, energy, mass)
Measurements of the depth of maximum muon production and of its fluctuations in extensive air showers above $1.5×10^{19} eV$ at the Pierre Auger Observatory
M. Mallamaci*  on behalf of the Pierre Auger Collaboration
Full text: pdf
Pre-published on: August 16, 2017
Published on: August 03, 2018
Abstract
The surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory measures
the arrival time distribution of particles, providing indirect information on the longitudinal development of the muonic component of extensive air showers. In this work, the depth at which the muon production is maximum and the corresponding fluctuations are reconstructed for more than 2000 events above $\mathrm{1.5\times10^{19} \ eV}$, in a wide range of zenith angles, between 45$^\circ$ and 65$^\circ$. Both observables are exploited to gain insight about the most up-to-date hadronic interactions models, which are used in the simulation of extensive air showers. By constraining the models, these observables could allow one to obtain better information on high energy hadronic interactions, and therefore they could indirectly help for the mass composition study of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, one of the most intriguing issues of modern astrophysics.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/1.301.0509
How to cite

Metadata are provided both in "article" format (very similar to INSPIRE) as this helps creating very compact bibliographies which can be beneficial to authors and readers, and in "proceeding" format which is more detailed and complete.

Open Access
Creative Commons LicenseCopyright owned by the author(s) under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.