No Arabic abstract
Over the last two decades, various experiments have measured muon densities in extensive air showers over several orders of magnitude in primary energy. While some experiments observed differences in the muon densities between simulated and experimentally measured air showers, others reported no discrepancies. We will present an update of the meta-analysis of muon measurements from nine air shower experiments, covering shower energies between a few PeV and tens of EeV and muon threshold energies from a few 100 MeV to about 10 GeV. In order to compare measurements from different experiments, their energy scale was cross-calibrated and the experimental data has been compared using a universal reference scale based on air shower simulations. Above 10 PeV, we find a muon excess with respect to simulations for all hadronic interaction models, which is increasing with shower energy. For EPOS-LHC and QGSJet-II.04 the significance of the slope of the increase is analyzed in detail under different assumptions of the individual experimental uncertainties.
We present a meta-analysis of recent muon density measurements made by eight air shower experiments which cover shower energies ranging from PeV to tens of EeV regarding the muon puzzle in extensive air showers. Some experimental analyses reported deviations between recorded and simulated muon densities in extensive air showers, and others reported no discrepancies. Comparisons between experiments were made using a universal reference scale based on the relative difference to simulated proton and iron initiated air showers. We have applied a cross-calibration of energy scales between experiments based on the isotropic flux of cosmic rays as a reference. Above 10 PeV, most experimental data show a muon excess with respect to simulated air showers, including those performed with the recent post-LHC high-energy interaction models. The discrepancy increases with the shower energy with a slope 8 sigma away from the predictions by EPOS-LHC and QGSJet-II.04. The effect of measurements being made at different zenith angles and energy threshold of muons across different experiments will be addressed.
In this work, direct measurements of the muon density at $1000,textrm{m}$ from the shower axis obtained by the Akeno Giant Air Shower Array (AGASA) are analysed. The selected events have zenith angles $theta leq 36^{textrm{o}}$ and reconstructed energies in the range $18.83,leq,log_{10}(E_{R}/textrm{eV}),leq,19.46$. These are compared to the predictions corresponding to proton, iron, and mixed composition scenarios obtained by using the high-energy hadronic interaction models EPOS-LHC, QGSJetII-04, and Sibyll2.3c. The mass fractions of the mixed composition scenarios are taken from the fits to the depth of the shower maximum distributions performed by the Pierre Auger Collaboration. The cross-calibrated energy scale from the Spectrum Working Group [D. Ivanov, for the Pierre Auger Collaboration and the Telescope Array Collaboration, PoS(ICRC2017) 498 (2017)] is used to combine results from different experiments. The analysis shows that the AGASA data are compatible with a heavier composition with respect to the one predicted by the mixed composition scenarios. Interpreting this as a muon deficit in air shower simulations, the incompatibility is quantified. The muon density obtained from AGASA data is greater than that of the mixed composition scenarios by a factor of $1.49pm0.11,textrm{(stat)}pm0.18,textrm{(syst)}$, $1.54pm0.12,textrm{(stat)}pm0.18,textrm{(syst)}$, and $1.66pm0.13,textrm{(stat)}pm0.20,textrm{(syst)}$ for EPOS-LHC, Sibyll2.3c, and QGSJetII-04, respectively.
The mass composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays can be studied from the distributions of the depth of shower maximum and/or the muon shower size. Here, we study the dependence of the mean muon shower size on the depth of shower maximum in detail. Air showers induced by protons and iron nuclei were simulated with two models of hadronic interactions already tuned with LHC data (run I-II). The generated air showers were combined to obtain various types of mass composition of the primary beam. We investigated the shape of the functional dependence of the mean muon shower size on the depth of shower maximum and its dependency on the composition mixture. Fitting this dependence we can derive the primary fractions and the muon rescaling factor with a statistical uncertainty at a level of few percent. The difference between the reconstructed primary fractions is below 20% when different models are considered. The difference in the muon shower size between the two models was observed to be around 6%.
Cosmic ray air showers emit radio pulses at MHz frequencies, which can be measured with radio antenna arrays - like LOPES at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. To improve the understanding of the radio emission, we test theoretical descriptions with measured data. The observables used for these tests are the absolute amplitude of the radio signal, and the shape of the radio lateral distribution. We compare lateral distributions of more than 500 LOPES events with two recent and public Monte Carlo simulation codes, REAS 3.11 and CoREAS (v 1.0). The absolute radio amplitudes predicted by REAS 3.11 are in good agreement with the LOPES measurements. The amplitudes predicted by CoREAS are lower by a factor of two, and marginally compatible with the LOPES measurements within the systematic scale uncertainties. In contrast to any previo
The aim of this report of the Working Group on Hadronic Interactions and Air Shower Simulation is to give an overview of the status of the field, emphasizing open questions and a comparison of relevant results of the different experiments. It is shown that an approximate overall understanding of extensive air showers and the corresponding hadronic interactions has been reached. The simulations provide a qualitative description of the bulk of the air shower observables. Discrepancies are however found when the correlation between measurements of the longitudinal shower profile are compared to that of the lateral particle distributions at ground. The report concludes with a list of important problems that should be addressed to make progress in understanding hadronic interactions and, hence, improve the reliability of air shower simulations.