Depth of maximum of extensive air showers and cosmic ray composition above 10**17 eV in the geometrical multichain model of nuclei interactions

Abstract

The depth of maximum for extensive air showers measured by Fly's Eye and Yakutsk experiments is analysed. The analysis depends on the hadronic interaction model that determine cascade development. The novel feature found in the cascading process for nucleus-nucleus collisions at high energies leads to a fast increase of the inelasticity in heavy nuclei interactions without changing the hadron-hadron interaction properties. This effects the development of the extensive air showers initiated by heavy primaries. The detailed calculations were performed using the recently developed geometrical multichain model and the CORSIKA simulation code. The agreement with data on average depth of shower maxima, the falling slope of the maxima distribution, and these distribution widths are found for the very heavy cosmic ray mass spectrum (slightly heavier than expected in the diffusion model at about 3*10**17 eV and similar to the Fly's Eye composition at this energy).