The modeling of the nuclear composition measurement performance of the Non-Imaging CHErenkov Array (NICHE)

Abstract

In its initial deployment, the Non-Imaging CHErenkov Array (NICHE)will measure the flux and nuclear composition of cosmic rays from below 10^16 eV to 10^18 eV by using measurements of the amplitude and time-spread of the air-shower Cherenkov signal to achieve a robust event-by-event measurement of Xmax and energy. NICHE will have sufficient area and angular acceptance to have significant overlap with TA/TALE, within which NICHE is located, to allow for energy cross-calibration. In order to quantify NICHE's ability to measure the cosmic ray nuclear composition, 4-component composition models were constructed based upon a poly-gonato model of J. Hoerandel using simulated Xmax distributions of the composite composition as a function of energy. These composition distributions were then unfolded into individual components via an analysis technique that included NICHE's simulated Xmax and energy resolution performance as a function of energy as well as the effects of finite event statistics. Details of the construction of the 4-component composition models and NICHE's ability to determine the individual components as a function of energy are presented.