Measuring temporal characteristics of the Cherenkov radiation signal from extensive air showers of cosmic rays with a wide field-of-view telescope addendum to the Yakutsk array

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to estimate the depth of the shower maximum in cosmic ray air showers by analyzing the duration of Cherenkov radiation signals captured with a wide field-of-view telescope at the Yakutsk array.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to determine shower development parameters using Cherenkov signal duration data combined with model simulations.

Findings

Duration of Cherenkov signals varies with shower core distance.

The method provides an alternative estimate of the shower maximum depth.

Results are consistent with existing models and measurements.

Abstract

A wide field-of-view Cherenkov telescope has been working in the surroundings of the Yakutsk array experiment since 2012. Its main function is to measure the waveform of the Cherenkov radiation signal induced by extensive air showers of cosmic rays. Analysis of the dataset collected by telescope is intended for the reconstruction of the parameters of the development of the shower in addition to the main shower characteristics measured by the rest of the array detectors. In this paper, the observed duration of the Cherenkov radiation signal as a function of the shower core distance is used to estimate the depth of the shower maximum in a different way, based on the results of model simulations.