Kickelbick, Dirk: The energy spectrum of primary cosmic rays measured with the KASCADE-Grande experiment. 2008
Inhalt
- Abstract
- Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Cosmic rays
- 2.1 Energy spectrum of the cosmic rays
- 2.2 The composition of cosmic rays
- 2.3 Acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays
- 2.4 The origin of the knee
- 2.5 Extensive air showers
- 3 The KASCADE-Grande experiment
- 3.1 The KASCADE detector array
- 3.2 The central detector
- 3.2.1 Hadron calorimeter
- 3.2.2 The muon chamber system and trigger plane
- 3.2.3 Top cluster and top layer
- 3.3 The muon tracking detector
- 3.4 The Grande array
- 3.5 The Piccolo array
- 3.6 Central data acquisition
- 4 Reconstruction and simulation of extensive air showers
- 4.1 Reconstruction of extensive air showers in KASCADE-Grande
- 4.2 Simulation of extensive air showers for KASCADE-Grande
- 5 Data sample selection
- 6 Constant intensity method and corrected shower size spectra
- 7 Subsample selection and energy conversion
- 7.1 Shower fluctuations and composition dependence
- 7.2 Subsample cuts
- 7.3 Energy conversion
- 7.4 Summary
- 8 All particle primary energy spectrum
- 8.1 Energy calibration function
- 8.2 Study of systematic uncertainties
- 8.2.1 Influence of the uncertainty in the shower core position reconstruction
- 8.2.2 Influence of the precision in the arrival direction reconstruction
- 8.2.3 Influence of the precision of the reconstructed number of charged particles
- 8.2.4 Influence of the uncertainties of the various applied fits
- 8.2.5 Influence of the primary composition
- 8.2.6 Influence of the shower fluctuations
- 8.2.7 Overall systematic error
- 8.3 Summary
- 9 Summary and conclusions
- A Number of charged particles determined by applying the constant intensity method
- B Error propagation when using the constant intensity method
- C Result of the application of the constant intensity method
- C.1 Results of the attenuation curve fits
- C.2 Resulting shower size spectra using reference angle 0
- C.3 Comparing the corrected shower size spectra for the reference angles 0 and 21
- C.4 Corrected shower size spectra
- D Examination of the shower fluctuations
- D.1 Fluctuations of the number of charged particles for hydrogen induced showers
- D.2 Fluctuations of the number of charged particles for iron induced showers
- D.3 Fluctuations of the number of muons for hydrogen induced showers
- D.4 Fluctuations of the number of muons for iron induced showers
- D.5 Summary of the fluctuations for hydrogen induced showers
- E Examination of the energy conversion
- E.1 Influence of standard quality cuts on the event distribution over the KASCADE-Grande array
- E.2 Distributions of the muon number as a function of the primary energy
- E.3 Profile plots for the energy conversion using standard cuts
- E.4 Comparing results using subsample cuts with results using standard quality cuts
- F Energy spectrum with systematics
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Acronyms
- Bibliography
- Danksagung