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# ICRC2015

July 29, 2015 to August 6, 2015
World Forum
Europe/Amsterdam timezone

## Measurement of the muon content in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory

Aug 3, 2015, 2:30 PM
15m
Yangtze 2 (World Forum)

### Yangtze 2

#### World Forum

Churchillplein 10 2517 JW Den Haag The Netherlands
Oral contribution CR-EX

### Speaker

Dr Laura Collica (INFN Torino)

### Description

The muon content of extensive air showers is an observable sensitive to the primary composition and to the hadronic interaction properties. We present here different methods which allow us to estimate the muon number at the ground level and the muon production depth by exploiting the measurement of the longitudinal, lateral and temporal distribution of particles in air showers recorded at the Pierre Auger Observatory. The results, obtained at about $10^{19}$ eV ($E_\mathrm{CM}\sim140$ TeV center-of-mass energy for proton primaries), are compared to the predictions of LHC-tuned hadronic interaction models with different primary masses and suggest a deficit in the muon content at the ground predicted by simulations. The Pierre Auger Observatory is the only hybrid detector sensitive to muons and the combination of these results with other independent mass composition analyses such as $X_\mathrm{max}$ provides additional constraints on hadronic interaction models.
Collaboration Pierre Auger 690

### Primary author

Dr Laura Collica (INFN Torino)