The Distribution of Energy in Extensive Air Showers and the Shower Size Spectrum

Abstract

Extensive air showers in the size range N = 3 × 105 to 4 × 106 have been studied with an array of four water tanks, in which the shower particles are detected by the Cerenkov light they produce when passing through the water. It is found that the differential size spectrum of the showers has a rapid change of slope in the neighbourhood of N = 6 × 105, the exponent changing from 2.3 ± 0.1 to 3.0 ± 0.15 with increasing N.