Precise determination of muon and EM shower contents from shower universality property

TL;DR

This paper introduces two new methods based on shower universality to accurately estimate muon and electromagnetic components of extensive air showers, independent of primary particle properties.

Contribution

It presents novel parameterizations enabling independent estimation of shower components using minimal observable parameters.

Findings

Muon and EM signals can be estimated from shower maximum and total signal.

EM signal can be derived from primary energy and zenith angle.

Parameterizations are nearly independent of primary particle type, energy, and zenith angle.

Abstract

We present two new aspects of Extensive Air Shower (EAS) development universality allowing to make accurate estimation of muon and electromagnetic (EM) shower contents in two independent ways. In the first case, to get muon (or EM) signal in water Cherenkov detectors it is enough to know the vertical depth of shower maximum and the total signal. In the second case, the EM signal can be calculated from the primary particle energy and the zenith angle. In both cases the parameterizations of muon and EM signals are almost independent on primary particle nature, energy and zenith angle.