Simulation of Proton and Iron Induced Extensive Air Showers

TL;DR

This paper compares how different high-energy interaction models in CORSIKA affect the simulation results of extensive air showers caused by proton and iron primaries at ultra-high energies.

Contribution

It evaluates the impact of QGSJET and DPMJET models on key EAS observables like lateral distribution functions and muon to electron ratios.

Findings

QGSJET and DPMJET produce different LDFs and muon/electron ratios.

Model choice significantly influences EAS simulation outcomes.

Results aid in interpreting cosmic ray data and model selection.

Abstract

The reliable simulation of extensive air showers induced by different primary particles (e. g. proton, iron, gamma etc.) is of great importance in high energy cosmic ray research. The CORSIKA is a standard Monte-Carlo simulation package to simulate the four dimensional evolution of Extensive Air Shower (EAS) in the atmosphere initiated by gamma, hadrons and nuclei. CORSIKA has different high energy interaction models like DPMJET, QGSJET, NEXUS, SIBYLL, VENUS and EPOS which are based on different theoretical frameworks. The influence of different hadronic interaction models, viz., QGSJET and DPMJET on the lateral distribution functions (LDF) and muon to electron ratio of cosmic ray EAS induced by 10^17 eV to 10^20 eV proton and iron primaries are explored in this work.