https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201921602005
Determination of cosmic-ray primary mass on an event-by-event basis using radio detection
1
Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2
Departamento de Física de Partículas & Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxías, Univ. de Santiago de Compostela
15782
Santiago de Compostela, Spain
★ e-mail: carvajr@gmail.com
Published online: 24 September 2019
Traditionally, the depth of maximum shower development Xmax has been used as a surrogate observable for composition. Here we present the possibility of a new methodology to discriminate between light and heavy cosmic-ray primaries on an event-by-event basis. This method is based on comparisons between detected radio signals and Monte Carlo simulations, but instead of first reconstructing Xmax, we try to infer the cosmic-ray composition directly. We show that a large discrimination efficiency could in principle be reached for zenith angles above θ≃65°, even when some of the typical uncertainties in radio detection are taken into account.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
