Measurements of the Longitudinal Development of Air Showers with the Pierre Auger Observatory

PIERRE AUGER COLL. , D. GARCIA PINTO; MARIA TERESA DOVA ET AL

Conferencia; 32ND INTERNATIONAL COSMIC RAY CONFERENCE, BEIJING 2011; 2011

Due to its hybrid design, the Pierre Auger Observatory provides a variety of independent experimental observables that carry information on the characteristics of the longitudinal development of ultra-high energy air showers. These include the direct measurement of the profile of the energy deposit of showers in the atmosphere through the detection of fluorescence light but also observables derived from the shower signal measured with the surface detector array. In this contribution we present a comparison of the results obtained with the fluorescence detector on the depth of shower maximum with complementary information derived from asymmetry properties of the particle signal in the surface detector stations and the depth profile of muon production points, also derived from surface detector data. The measurements are compared to predictions for proton- and iron-induced showers.