The KASCADE-Grande air shower experiment 1 consists of, among others, a large scintillator array for measurements of charged particles, Nch, and of an array of shielded scintillation counters used ...for muon counting, Nμ. KASCADE-Grande is optimized for cosmic ray measurements in the energy range 10PeV to about 2000PeV, where exploring the composition is of fundamental importance for understanding the transition from galactic to extragalactic origin of cosmic rays. Following earlier studies of the all-particle and the elemental spectra reconstructed in the knee energy range from KASCADE data 2, we have now extended these measurements to beyond 200PeV. By analysing the two-dimensional shower size spectrum Nch vs. Nμ for nearly vertical events, we reconstruct the energy spectra of different mass groups by means of unfolding methods over an energy range where the detector is fully efficient. The procedure and its results, which are derived based on the hadronic interaction model QGSJET-II-02 and which yield a strong indication for a dominance of heavy mass groups in the covered energy range and for a knee-like structure in the iron spectrum at around 80PeV, are presented. This confirms and further refines the results obtained by other analyses of KASCADE-Grande data, which already gave evidence for a knee-like structure in the heavy component of cosmic rays at about 80PeV 3.
Two-pion production reactions in proton–proton collisions have been studied using the PROMICE/ WASA detector and an internal cluster gas-jet target at the CELSIUS storage ring in Uppsala. The total ...cross sections for the
pp→ppπ
+π
−
,
pp→ppπ
0π
0
and the
pp→pnπ
0π
+
reactions are presented at beam energies ranging from 650 to 775 MeV. An isospin analysis of the amplitudes involved in these three reactions indicates that the excitation of the
N
∗(1440)
followed by direct two pion emission can be the most important amplitude when allowed. However, large contributions from other production mechanisms must also be prevalent to explain the large
pp→pnπ
0π
+
cross section. The data are compared to an extensive model including non-resonant as well as resonant production via
N
∗
and
Δ excitation.
The radio technique is a promising method for detection of cosmic-ray air showers of energies around 100PeV and higher with an array of radio antennas. Since the amplitude of the radio signal can be ...measured absolutely and increases with the shower energy, radio measurements can be used to determine the air-shower energy on an absolute scale. We show that calibrated measurements of radio detectors operated in coincidence with host experiments measuring air showers based on other techniques can be used for comparing the energy scales of these host experiments. Using two approaches, first via direct amplitude measurements, and second via comparison of measurements with air shower simulations, we compare the energy scales of the air-shower experiments Tunka-133 and KASCADE-Grande, using their radio extensions, Tunka-Rex and LOPES, respectively. Due to the consistent amplitude calibration for Tunka-Rex and LOPES achieved by using the same reference source, this comparison reaches an accuracy of approximately 10% – limited by some shortcomings of LOPES, which was a prototype experiment for the digital radio technique for air showers. In particular we show that the energy scales of cosmic-ray measurements by the independently calibrated experiments KASCADE-Grande and Tunka-133 are consistent with each other on this level.
•The effective muon attenuation and absorption lengths of air showers are investigated.•Air shower data of the KASCADE-Grande observatory is analyzed.•Predictions of the models SIBYLL 2.1, EPOS-LHC, ...QGSJET-II-02 and -04 are tested.•The studied models fail to describe consistently the attenuation of the muon data.
The evolution of the muon content of very high energy air showers (EAS) in the atmosphere is investigated with data of the KASCADE-Grande observatory. For this purpose, the muon attenuation length in the atmosphere is obtained to Λμ=1256±85−232+229(syst)g/cm2 from the experimental data for shower energies between 1016.3 and 1017.0 eV. Comparison of this quantity with predictions of the high-energy hadronic interaction models QGSJET-II-02, SIBYLL 2.1, QGSJET-II-04 and EPOS-LHC reveals that the attenuation of the muon content of measured EAS in the atmosphere is lower than predicted. Deviations are, however, less significant with the post-LHC models. The presence of such deviations seems to be related to a difference between the simulated and the measured zenith angle evolutions of the lateral muon density distributions of EAS, which also causes a discrepancy between the measured absorption lengths of the density of shower muons and the predicted ones at large distances from the EAS core. The studied deficiencies show that all four considered hadronic interaction models fail to describe consistently the zenith angle evolution of the muon content of EAS in the aforesaid energy regime.
The KASCADE-Grande experiment Apel, W.D.; Arteaga, J.C.; Badea, A.F. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
08/2010, Letnik:
620, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
KASCADE-Grande is the enlargement of the KASCADE extensive air shower detector, realized to expand the cosmic ray studies from the previous 10
14–10
17
eV primary energy range to 10
18
eV. This is ...performed by extending the area covered by the KASCADE electromagnetic array from 200×200 to 700×700
m
2 by means of 37 scintillator detector stations of 10
m
2 area each. This new array is named Grande and provides measurements of the all-charged particle component of extensive air showers (
N
ch
), while the original KASCADE array particularly provides information on the muon content
(
N
μ
)
. Additional dense compact detector set-ups being sensitive to energetic hadrons and muons are used for data consistency checks and calibration purposes. The performance of the Grande array and its integration into the entire experimental complex is discussed. It is demonstrated that the overall observable resolutions are adequate to meet the physical requirements of the measurements, i.e. primary energy spectrum and elemental composition studies in the primary cosmic ray energy range of 10
16–10
18
eV.
A new design of a readout front-end board for large area streamer tube muon tracking detectors is presented. Such boards have proved to work well in the KASCADE extensive air shower experiment.
Exclusive and kinematically complete high-statistics measurements of the basic double-pionic fusion reactions pn→dπ0π0, pn→dπ+π− and pp→dπ+π0 have been carried out simultaneously over the energy ...region of the ABC effect using the WASA detector setup at COSY. Whereas the isoscalar reaction part given by the dπ0π0 channel exhibits the ABC effect, i.e. a low-mass enhancement in the ππ-invariant mass distribution, as well as the associated resonance structure in the total cross section, the isovector part given by the dπ+π0 channel shows a smooth behavior consistent with the conventional t-channel ΔΔ process. The dπ+π− data are very well reproduced by combining the data for isovector and isoscalar contributions, if the kinematical consequences of the isospin violation due to different masses for charged and neutral pions are taken into account.
The Light-Pulser Monitoring System for the WASA detector facility Zabierowski, J.; Rachowski, J.
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
07/2009, Letnik:
606, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The design and performance of the system for monitoring the stability of the scintillation counters in the WASA multi-detector apparatus are presented. The system utilizes light pulses generated by ...LEDs and a Xenon flash tube, for monitoring plastic and inorganic scintillator based counters, respectively.
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