2008/01/28 by M. Unger, B. R. Dawson, R. Engel +3 · 83 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Air shower #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Cherenkov detector #Cherenkov radiation #Cosmic ray #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Electron #Energy (signal processing) #Extrapolation #Neutrino Physics Research #Nuclear physics #Optics #Physics #Shower #Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.nima.2008.01.100
published in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment 588(3), 433-441 (Elsevier BV) · accepted by NIM A
arxiv created 2008/01/28 · openalex publication_date 2008/02/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a new method for the reconstruction of the longitudinal profile of extensive air showers induced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays. In contrast to the typically considered shower size profile, this method employs directly the ionization energy deposit of the shower particles in the atmosphere. Due to universality of the energy spectra of electrons and positrons, both fluorescence and Cherenkov light can be used simultaneously as signal to infer the shower profile from the detected light. The method is based on an analytic least-square solution for the estimation of the shower profile from the observed light signal. Furthermore, the extrapolation of the observed part of the profile with a Gaisser-Hillas function is discussed and the total statistical uncertainty of shower parameters like total energy and shower maximum is calculated.