On evolution of Primary Cosmic Ray mass composition in the energy region $10^{14}-10^{16}$ eV

Abstract

A new method of determining Primary Cosmic Ray mass composition is proposed. The method is based on quasi-localization of the integral equation for the Extensive Air Showers spectrum versus the total number of high energy muons ($E_{\mu }⩾235$ GeV) and an expansion of the experimentally measured spectrum in spectra of five group of primary nuclei. The cosmic ray mass composition is established in the energy region $10^{14}-10^{16}$ eV. In the region $10^{15}-10^{16}$ eV our analysis points to a lightening of the mass composition from $p+\alpha \simeq 0.54,⟨\ln A⟩\simeq 1.97$ to $p+\alpha \simeq 0.69,⟨\ln A⟩\simeq 1.56$.

Comments: A few days ago we have been informed by an author of the paper Voevodsky A.V., Petkov V.B., Semenov A.M. et al., Rus.J. Izvestiya of RAS, ser.phys., v.58, N 12, p.127, (1994) that the muon multiplicity spectrum obtained in the aforementioned paper by Voevodsky et al is wrong. We used this spectrum as input data in our work. Therefore we have to withdraw the preprint 1311.0970