A new air-shower observable to constrain hadronic interaction models

The energy spectrum of muons at ground level in air showers is studied and a new observable is proposed to constrain hadronic interaction models used in air shower simulations. An asymmetric Gaussian function is proposed to describe the muon ground energy spectrum and its parameters are studied regarding primary particle, energy and hadronic interaction models. Based on two realistic measurements of the muon density at a given distance from the shower axis, a new observable (rμ) is defined. Considering realistic values of detector resolutions and number of measured events, it is also shown rμ can be successfully used to constrain low and high energy hadronic interaction models. The study is focused in the energy range between 1017.5 and 1018.0 eV because of the importance of this interval for particle physics and astrophysical models. The constraining power of the new observable is shown to be large within current experimental capabilities.