Measurement of the cosmic ray composition at the knee with the SPASE-2/AMANDA-B10 detectors

• Published in: Astroparticle Physics
• Main Authors: Ahrens, J., Ackermann, M., Binon, F. G., Schneider, D., Schwarz, R., Silvestri, A., Solarz, M., Spiczak, G. M., Spiering, C., Stamatikos, M., Stanev, T., Steele, D., Steffen, P., Biron, A., Stokstad, R. G., Sulanke, K. H., Taboada, I., Tilav, S., Walck, C., Wagner, W., Wang, Y. R., Watson, A. A., Wiebusch, C. H., Wiedemann, C., Boersma, D. J., Wischnewski, R., Wissing, H., Woschnagg, K., Wu, W., Yodh, G., Young, S., AMANDA Collaboration, SPASE Collaboration, Boeser, Sebastian, Botner, O., Bouchta, A., Bouhali, O., Burgess, T., Carius, S., Castermans, T., Andres, E., Chirkin, D., Conrad, J., Cooley, J., Cowen, D. F., Davour, A., De Clercq, C., DeYoung, T., Desiati, P., Dewulf, J. P.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Science 2004
• Subjects: info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/540; elements: cosmic radiation; cosmic radiation: mass spectrum; showers: air; muon: cosmic radiation; cosmic radiation: energy spectrum; scintillation counter; Cherenkov counter: water; correlation: time; experimental results; AMANDA; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/329838; https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/search?p=id:%22PUBDB-2017-06388%22

The mass composition of high-energy cosmic rays at energies above 10 15 eV can provide crucial information for the understanding of their origin. Air showers were measured simultaneously with the SPASE-2 air shower array and the AMANDA-B10 Cherenkov telescope at the South Pole. This combination has the advantage to sample almost all high-energy shower muons and is thus a new approach to the determination of the cosmic ray composition. The change in the cosmic ray mass composition was measured versus existing data from direct measurements at low energies. Our data show an increase of the mean log atomic mass 〈ln A 〉 by about 0.8 between 500 TeV and 5 PeV. This trend of an increasing mass through the “knee” region is robust against a variety of systematic effects.