GAP2014_037: A new method for reconstructing the muon lateral distribution function with AMIGA

DIEGO RAVIGNANI; DANIEL SUPANITSKY; ALBERTO ETCHEGOYEN

Otro; Nota interna; 2014

Pierre Auger Collaboration

A method for reconstructing the lateral distribution function of muons with the array of segmented counters that is currently being installed at the Pierre Auger Observatory to observe cosmic rays with energies from $\unit[10^{17}]{eV}$ was originally developed in (A. D. Supanitsky {\em et al.}, Astropart. Phys. {\bf 29}, 461). In this article a new reconstruction method based on the probability of the number of segments with signal as function of the muon density is presented. A reference distance of \unit[450]{m} to evaluate the number of muons is found and the corresponding statistical and systematic uncertainties of the new and the original methods are compared. It is found that the statistical uncertainty of the new reconstruction is less than that of the original one therefore enhancing the power to discriminate between heavy and light cosmic ray primaries with the array. Additionally the working range of the set of muon counters installed in each array position is extended from 174 muons in the original reconstruction to more than 700 muons in the new one allowing the inclusion of events falling closer to a detector in science analyses.