Measurements of high energy cosmic rays above 10 PeV with KASCADE-Grande [Elektronische Ressource] / Fabiana Cossavella. Betreuer: J. Blümer

Measurements of high energy cosmic raysabove 10 PeV with KASCADE-GrandeZur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einesDOKTORS DER NATURWISSENSCHAFTENvon der Fakultat fur Physik der¨ ¨Universit¨at Karlsruhe (TH)genehmigteDISSERTATIONvonDipl. Phys. Fabiana Cossavellaaus TorinoTag der mundl¨ ichen Pru¨fung: 17.07.2009Referent: Prof. Dr. J. Blumer, Institut fur Experimentelle Kernphysik¨ ¨Korreferent: Prof. Dr. G. Navarra, Dipartimento di Fisica Generale, Universita´ degli Studidi TorinoiAbstractIn the present work, different aspects of the measurement and reconstruction of extensive16 18air showers generated by cosmic rays in the energy range between 10 eV and 10 eVare investigated. KASCADE-Grande detects charged particles of extensive air showersat ground level. From the energy deposits and the arrival times of the particles in thedetector stations, the main parameters of the extensive air showers are reconstructed: theimpact point, the direction of the shower axis, the total number of electrons (N ), and theetotal number of muons (N ) of the shower at observation level. The numbers of electronsμand muons are related to the mass and energy of the primary particle and are the basisfor further analysis.The shape of the electron number spectrum reflects the shape of the cosmic ray energyspectrum. Knowing the reconstruction accuracies, the N spectrum of the KASCADE-eGrande data is studied in order to identify possible spectral features.