A new observable in extensive air showers

C. A. GARCÍA CANAL; J. I. ILLANA; M. MASIP; S. J. SCIUTTO

ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016 vol. 85 p. 50 - 53

0927-6505

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 $X_{m max}$ of the shower maximum. This result, obtained with the air-shower code AIRES, is independent of the hadronic modelused in the simulation. We show that the value of$r_{mu e}$ in a particular shower discriminates its protonor iron nature with a 98% efficiency.We also show that the eventual production of {it forward} heavy quarks inside the shower may introduce anomalous values of $r_{mu e}$ in isolated events.