A new method to measure the attenuation of hadrons in extensive air showers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method for measuring hadron attenuation in extensive air showers by combining electron, muon, and hadronic energy measurements, providing new insights into high-energy cosmic ray interactions.

Contribution

The paper presents a new approach to determine hadron attenuation lengths in air showers using combined detector data, improving understanding of cosmic ray interactions.

Findings

Attenuation length increases from 170 g/cm² to 210 g/cm² between 10^6 and 3×10^7 GeV.

Results are consistent with predictions from contemporary high-energy interaction models.

Method provides a new way to study hadronic processes in cosmic ray air showers.

Abstract

Extensive air showers are generated through interactions of high-energy cosmic rays impinging the Earth's atmosphere. A new method is described to infer the attenuation of hadrons in air showers. The numbers of electrons and muons, registered with the scintillator array of the KASCADE experiment are used to estimate the energy of the shower inducing primary particle. A large hadron calorimeter is used to measure the hadronic energy reaching observation level. The ratio of energy reaching ground level to the energy of the primary particle is used to derive an attenuation length of hadrons in air showers. In the energy range from $10^6$ GeV to $3\cdot10^7$ GeV the attenuation length obtained increases from 170 \gcm2 to 210 \gcm2. The experimental results are compared to predictions of simulations based on contemporary high energy interaction models.