Paper detail

KASCADE-Grande measurements of energy spectra for elemental groups of cosmic rays

The KASCADE-Grande experiment, located at KIT-Karlsruhe, Germany, consists of a large scintillator array for measurements of charged particles, N_ch, and of an array of shielded scintillation counters used for muon counting, N_mu. KASCADE-Grande is optimized for cosmic ray measurements in the energy range 10 PeV to 1000 PeV, thereby enabling the verification of a knee in the iron spectrum expected at approximately 100 PeV. Exploring the composition in this energy range is of fundamental importance for understanding the transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays. Following earlier studies of elemental spectra reconstructed in the knee energy range from KASCADE data, we have now extended these measurements to beyond 100 PeV. By analysing the two-dimensional shower size spectrum N_ch vs. N_mu, we reconstruct the energy spectra of different mass groups by means of unfolding methods. The procedure and its results, giving evidence for a knee-like structure in the spectrum of iron nuclei, will be presented.