Simulation of Proton and Iron Induced Extensive Air Showers

Abstract

The reliable simulation of extensive air showers induced by different primary particles (e. g. proton, iron, gamma etc.) is of great importance in high energy cosmic ray research. The CORSIKA is a standard Monte-Carlo simulation package to simulate the four dimensional evolution of Extensive Air Shower (EAS) in the atmosphere initiated by gamma, hadrons and nuclei. CORSIKA has different high energy interaction models like DPMJET, QGSJET, NEXUS, SIBYLL, VENUS and EPOS which are based on different theoretical frameworks. The influence of different hadronic interaction models, viz., QGSJET and DPMJET on the lateral distribution functions (LDF) and muon to electron ratio of cosmic ray EAS induced by 10^17 eV to 10^20 eV proton and iron primaries are explored in this work.