Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurement of atmospheric production depth

AUGER COLLABORATION (VER F. SANCHEZ EN PUBL. ADJUNTA)

PHYSICAL REVIEW D

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2014

1550-7998

The surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory provides information about the longi- tudinal development of the muonic component of extensive air showers. Using the timing informa- tion from the flash analog-to-digital converter traces of surface detectors far from the shower core, it is possible to reconstruct a muon production depth distribution. We characterize the goodness of this reconstruction for zenith angles around 60◦ and different energies of the primary particle. FromthesedistributionswedefineXmμaxasthedepthalongtheshoweraxiswheretheproduction ofmuonsreachesmaximum.WeexplorethepotentialityofXmμaxasausefulobservabletoinfer the mass composition of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Likewise, we assess its ability to constrain hadronic interaction models.