A New Method to Reconstruct the Energy and Determine the Composition of Cosmic Rays from the Measurement of Cherenkov Light and Particle Densities in Extensive Air Showers

1998/01/15 by A. Lindner, Lindner, A.
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #Particle Detector Development and Performance #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9801147

27 pages, 12 eps figures, accepted in Astroparticle Physics

arxiv created 1998/01/15 · openalex publication_date 1998/01/15 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

A Monte-Carlo study to reconstruct energy and mass of cosmic rays with energies above 300 TeV using ground based measurements of the electromagnetic part of showers initiated in the atmosphere is presented. The shower properties determined with two detector arrays measuring the air Cherenkov light and the particle densities as realized at the HEGRA experiment are processed to determine the energy of the primary particle without the need of any hypothesis concerning its mass. The mass of the primary particle is reconstructed coarsely from the same observables in parallel to the energy determination.

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