Lateral distribution of EAS muons measured for the primary cosmic ray energy around 100 TeV *

Abstract

Abstract The muonic component of the extensive air showers (EAS) is of great importance for the astroparticle physics. It carries the information about the properties of primary cosmic ray (CR) particles, such as their mass, and electromagnetic and hadronic nature. It provides a sensitive test for the hadronic interaction models, which are inevitable for describing the cascade shower development of cosmic rays in EAS experiments. The YangBaJing Hybrid Array (YBJ-HA) experiment has been in operation since the end of 2016. Surface detectors are used for the measurements of primary energy, angular direction and core position of a shower event, while underground muon detectors are used for measuring the density of muons at various locations. Using the data obtained by the YBJ-HA experiment, this work reports the first measurement of the lateral muon distribution for the primary cosmic ray energy in the 100 TeV region. The punch-through effect is evaluated via MC simulation.