Altitude dependence of fluorescence light emission by extensive air showers.pdf

a r X i v : 0 8 0 1 .4 2 0 0 v 4 [ a s t r o - p h ] 1 6 J u n 2 0 0 8 Altitude dependence of fluorescence light emission by extensive air showers B. Keilhauer a,? J. Blu?mer a,b R. Engel b H.O. Klages b aUniversita?t Karlsruhe, Institut fu?r Experimentelle Kernphysik, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany bForschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institut fu?r Kernphysik, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany Abstract Fluorescence light is induced by extensive air showers while developing in the Earth’s atmosphere. The number of emitted fluorescence photons depends on the conditions of the air and on the energy deposited by the shower particles at every stage of the development. In a previous model calculation, the pressure and temperature dependences of the fluorescence yield have been studied on the basis of kinetic gas theory, assuming temperature-independent molecular collision cross-sections. In this work we investigate the importance of temperature-dependent collision cross-sections and of water vapour quenching on the expected fluorescence yield. The calculations will be applied to simulated air showers while using actual atmospheric profiles to estimate the influence on the reconstructed energy of extensive air showers. Key words: fluorescence yield, altitude dependence, atmosphere, extensive air showers, ultra-high energy cosmic rays PACS: 96.50.sd, 96.50.sb, 33.50.-j 1. Introduction Several air shower experiments like HiRes [1], the Pierre Auger Observatory [2], and Telescope Array [3], are using the fluorescence technique for detecting extensive air showers (EAS) induced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays. Measuring the flu- orescence light that nitrogen molecules emit after being excited by charged particles of EAS is cur- rently the most direct method for determining the energy of EAS in a model-independent way. A thor- ough understanding of the light emission process is necessary to obtain the primary energy of EAS with high precision. In this paper, we extend our previous model cal