Speaker
Prof.
de Souza Vitor
(IFSC-USP)
Description
In this work we explain how the Pierre Auger Observatory measures and
reconstructs the longitudinal development of air showers. The
measurement of the energy deposit in the atmosphere by the detection
of the emitted fluorescence light is going to be briefly reviewed and
the reconstruction procedure is going to be explained in details. The
two main outputs of this analysis are: a) the depth in which the
shower reaches its maximum (Xmax) and b) the shower energy.
In this work we concentrate on the analysis techniques developed with
the aim to evaluate the unbiased Xmax distributions. We show how using
measured events it is possible to determine the depth ranges in which
the detectors are able to measure an unbiased Xmax distribution. Using
this analysis method we managed to obtain unbiased data without the
use of shower and detector simulations. Another important point we
are going to present in this work is how the detector resolution have
been calculated and how they are taken into account in our final
results. The analysis procedure explained here is a fundamental step
in the composition studies and in the measurements of the proton-air
cross section published by the Pierre Auger Collaboration.
Primary authors
The Pierre Auger Collaboration
(Pierre Auger Collaboration)
Prof.
de Souza Vitor
(IFSC-USP)
