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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 96: Kosmische Strahlung 4
T 96.6: Talk
Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 18:00–18:15, M105
Composition studies of Cosmic Rays using the Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory — •Karen Caballero Mora and Markus Roth — Karlsruhe Institut of Technology (KIT)
The determination of the mass composition of the Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) is one of the main challenges in Astroparticle Physics. The Pierre Auger Observatory provides a great amount of data from air showers induced by UHECR that can be used for this aim. This observatory is a hybrid detctor that consists of a Surface Detector (SD) and a Fluorescence detector (FD). The risetime at 1000 m from the shower core (t1/2(1000 m)) measured by the SD is a parameter very sensitive to the mass of the primary particle. We present a study of the potential of t1/2(1000 m) as estimator of the primary mass by means of its correlation with the depth of the shower maximum (Xmax). The latter is measured by the FD and is directly related to the mass of the primary particle. This method allows to use the higher statistics provided by the SD.