Wide air shower (EAS) - a shower of secondary subatomic particles (mainly electrons ), which is formed as a result of multiple cascade reactions in the Earth’s atmosphere. The ancestor of a shower is a primary particle that enters the atmosphere from space, reacting with the nuclei of the atoms of the gases that make up the air. Widespread air showers are normal, invisible to humans and recorded using special particle detectors .
The width of the rain at the surface of the earth can reach hundreds and thousands of meters, the area - tens of square kilometers. To obtain the characteristics of the primary particle (primarily its energy ), which are encoded in the characteristics of the secondary particles, it is necessary to place the detectors on the largest possible area.
The study of extensive air showers makes it possible to study the parameters of particles that cannot be observed directly from the earth, since their energy is too high for the passage of the earth's atmosphere, for example high-energy gamma particles .
See also
- Cosmic rays
- Solar Proton Storms
- Tunkinsky experiment
- Cherenkovsky telescope