Primary cosmic radiation and extensive air showers

Journal Article · Wed Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1961 · Nuovo Cimento

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02783106· OSTI ID:4817971

Peters, B.

The hypothesis that separate sources of cosmic particles of widely differing strength predominate in different energy regions is examined. If such separate sources exist and even if they differ in strength by factors as large as 10², no significant departure from smoothness in the size-frequency relation of air showers would occur, provided only that all chemical components in the primary radiation have identical spectra when expressed in terms of the magnetic rigidity of the particles or energy per nucleon, and provided further that the chemical composition of the accelerated particle beam does not deviate too radically from its composition at lower energies. While under these conditions, even an infinitely sharp cutoff in rigidity of the particles supplied by the stronger of the contributing sources produces no significant disturbance in the size frequency spectrum of air showers; it produces discontinuities and irregularities in the dependence of other shower parameters on shower size. Each observation seems to support the hypothesis that a rather sharp rigidity cut-off occurs in the source supplying most cosmic particles below this energy. Additional measurable irregularities are predicted. Considerations leading to this hypothesis emphasize the important role which complexity of chemical composition of primary cosmic radiation plays in interpretation of air- shower phenomena. It is suggested that a classification of air showers according to the maximum energy of the nuclear-active particles in the axis may be more relevant to an understanding of underlying nuclear and electromagnetic processes than the total number of shower particles. (L.N.N.)

• Research Organization: Univ. of Copenhagen
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• NSA Number: NSA-16-008089
• OSTI ID: 4817971
• Journal Information: Nuovo Cimento, Journal Name: Nuovo Cimento Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 22; ISSN 0029-6341
• Country of Publication: Country unknown/Code not available
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ANGULAR DISTRIBUTION
ASTROPHYSICS
ATMOSPHERE
BREMSSTRAHLUNG
CAPTURE
COSMIC RADIATION
DECAY
DISTRIBUTION
ELECTRIC CHARGES
ELECTRONS
ENERGY
ENERGY LEVELS
ENERGY RANGE
EXTENSIVE AIR SHOWERS
GAMMA DETECTION
GAMMA RADIATION
GAMMA SPECTROMETERS
INTERACTIONS
LATTICES
MEASURED VALUES
MONOCRYSTALS
NUCLEAR MODELS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUCLEAR THEORY
NUCLEI
NUCLEONS
PAIR PRODUCTION
PARITY
PHOSPHORUS 30
PHOTONS
PHYSICS
PRODUCTION
PROTONS
QUANTITY RATIO
SCATTERING
SCINTILLATION COUNTERS
SILICON 29
SODIUM IODIDES
SPIN
UNIFIED MODEL