Special features of high energy hadrons in air showers

Abstract

The properties of hadrons of energy 2.5*10¹⁰-10¹³ eV in air showers of size 5*10⁴-3*10⁶ particles at 800 cm^-2 have been studied using a 2 m² multiplate cloud chamber as the hadron detector operated at the centre of the TIFR air shower array at Ootacamund. The results show a tendency for the lateral distribution of high energy hadrons to flatten with increasing shower size and the number of hadrons does not increase linearly with size, but at a much slower rate especially for high energy hadrons. The fractional energy spectrum of hadrons of energies greater than 200 GeV is different for showers of size less than and greater than 3*10⁵ particles. The charge to neutral ratio of hadrons of energy greater than 25 GeV in showers of size less than 32.*10⁵ is found to have a rather low value (6.2+or-1.3) and there is evidence for a further decrease in this value for larger size showers.