Electron, muon, and hadron lateral distributions measured in air showers by the KASCADE experiment KASCADE Collaboration

Measurements of electron, muon and hadron lateral distributions of extensive air showers as recorded in the Karlsruhe shower core and array detector experiment are presented. The data cover the energy range from 5 10 eV up to almost 10 eV and extend from the inner core region to distances of 200 m. The electron and muon distributions are corrected for mutual contaminations by taking into account the detector properties in the experiment. All distributions are well described by NKG functions. The scale radii describing the electron and hadron data best are '30 and Astroparticle Physics 14 (2001) 245±260 www.elsevier.nl/locate/astropart * Corresponding author. Address: Institut f ur Experimentelle Kernphysik, University of Karlsruhe, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany. Tel.: +49-7247-823503; fax: +49-7247-824047. E-mail address: [email protected] (K.-H. Kampert). 1 Now at: University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. 2 Present address: University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi Institute, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. 3 Now at: University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. 0927-6505/01/$ see front matter Ó 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S09 2 7-6 5 05 (0 0 )0 01 2 50 '10 m, respectively. We discuss the correlation between the scale radii and the `age' parameter as well as their dependence on shower size, zenith angle, and particle energy threshold. Ó 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.