Air shower Cherenkov light simulations

The following images show several examples of the lateral distribution of Cherenkov light of air showers. The area displayed covers 400*400 m2 with the shower core at the centre. Click on any of these images to view a larger version of it. On these larger images you can click on any point to see what an ideal telescope of 100 m2 mirror area would see at that point. These telescope images have a field-of-view of 10*10 degree2, centered at the shower direction.

Lateral distributions (in 400*400 m2 area):

Proton, 1 TeV another proton of 1 TeV

and one more proton, also 1 TeV

Iron nucleus, 3 TeV Iron nucleus, 5 TeV

Gamma, 300 GeV Gamma, 100 GeV

Technical details:
Simulation with CORSIKA 4.50 without any atmospheric extinction. Note that extinction would reduce in particular the rings seen in the lateral distributions of the proton showers which are produced high in the atmosphere. The bright spots, on the other hand, are from particles reaching the ground (mostly muons) and would not be affected by extinction. All showers are vertical. The observation is assumed to be at a height of 2200 m. For efficiency reasons, Cherenkov photons were calculated in bunches of up to 10. In the lateral distributions white pixels correspond to 80 or more photons per m2 in the wavelength range 300-450 nm. In the telescope images white corresponds to 30 or more photons per 0.1*0.1 degree2 for a telescope area of 100 m2.

These pages were created by K. Bernlöhr at the MPIK in Heidelberg.

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