Simulating a measurement of the 2nd knee in the cosmic ray spectrum with an atmospheric fluorescence telescope tower array

Abstract

A fluorescence telescope tower array has been designed to measure cosmic rays in the energy range of 1017-1018 eV. A full Monte Carlo simulation, including air shower production, light generation and propagation, detector response, electronics, and trigger system, has been developed for that purpose. Using such a simulation tool, the detector configuration, which includes one main tower array and two side-trigger arrays, 24 telescopes in total, has been optimized. The aperture and the event rate have been estimated. Furthermore, the performance of the Xmax technique in measuring composition has also been studied. © 2014 Jiali Liu et al.