Simulation Study on Identifiability of UHE Gamma-ray Air Showers

The chemical composition of Ultra-High-Energy (UHE) comic rays is one of unsolved mysteries, and its study will give us fruitful information on the origin and acceleration mechanism of UHE cosmic rays. Especially, a detection of UHE gamma-rays by hybrid experiments, such as AUGER and TA, will be a key to solve these questions. The characteristics of UHE gamma-ray showers have been studied by comparing the lateral and longitudinal structures of shower particles calculated with AIRES and our own simulation code, so far. There are apparent differences in a slope of lateral distribution (η) and a depth of shower maximum (Xmax) between gamma-ray and proton induced showers because UHE gamma-ray showers are affected by the LPM effect and the geomagnetic cascading process in an energy region of . Different features between gamma-ray and proton showers are pointed out from the simulation study and an identifiability of gamma-ray showers from proton ones is also discussed by the method of Neural-Network-Analysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]