First results of the air shower experiment KASCADE

The main goals of the KASCADE (KArlsruhe Shower Core and Array DEtector) experiment are the determination of the energy spectrum and elemental composition of the charged cosmic rays in the energy range around the knee at ca. 5 PeV. Due to the large number of measured observables per single shower a variety of different approaches are applied to the data, preferably on an event-by-event basis. First results are presented and the influence of the high-energy interaction models underlying the analyses is discussed.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures included, to appear in the TAUP 99 Proceedings, Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.), ed. by M. Froissart, J. Dumarchez and D. Vignau

Resurrecting melancholia

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65798/1/j.1600-0447.2007.00958.x.pd

Cosmic ray physics around the knee with the KASCADE experiment

KASCADE (KArlsruhe Shower Core and Array DEtector) is a multidetector setup to observe the electromagnetic, muonic and hadronic air shower components simultaneously for the primary energy region around the knee. The large body of observables per single shower allows to follow the main aims of the experiment in analyses on an event-by-event basis, mainly: 1) slopes and structures of the primary energy spectrum; 2) the energy dependence of the chemical composition of the primaries; 3) tests of the air shower simulation tools underlying the analyses, in particular of the Monte Carlo generators based on different high-energy interaction models; 4) examinations of the air shower development in the atmosphere. Examples and results of different analysis methods are presented for the different subjects