Since 1996, a hybrid experiment consisting of an emulsion chamber and a burst
detector array and the Tibet-II air shower array has been operated at
Yangbajing (4300 m above sea level) in Tibet. This experiment can detect
air-shower cores, called burst events, accompanied by air showers in excess of
about 100 TeV. Using the burst event data observed by this experiment, we
discuss the primary cosmic ray composition around the knee in comparison with
the Monte Carlo simulations. In this paper, we show that all the features of
burst events are wholly compatible with the heavy enriched composition in the
knee energy region.Comment: 20 pages, 21 figures, to appear in Physical Review
