Are vertical cosmic rays the most suitable to radio detection ?

Abstract

The electric field induced by extensive air showers generated by high energy cosmic rays is considered and, more specifically, its dependence on the shower incident angle. It is shown that for distances between the shower axis and the observation point larger than a few hundred meters, non-vertical showers produce larger fields than vertical ones. This may open up new prospects since, to some extent, the consideration of non-vertical showers modifies the scope of the radio-detection domain.