Hadronic shower

A hadronic shower is a cascade of particles triggered by a hadron . Unlike electromagnetic showers, the shower development is determined by the strong interaction .

The strong interaction creates new hadrons in the particle cascade. a. often the lightest mesons produced by pions . Since neutral pions decay into two photons, an electromagnetic shower will also form within the hadronic shower. In addition, when the unstable particles decay, muons are also formed , whose decays in turn generate neutrinos , so that the particle shower is usually divided into hadronic, electromagnetic and muonic components.

Hadronic showers occur e.g. B. in hadronic calorimeters in particle detectors. The measurement of the shower can be used to measure the energy of the incoming particle. Also cosmic radiation consists largely of hadrons, the atmosphere in the extended air showers trigger. In this case, the individual components can be measured separately, as z. B. muons have a much greater depth of penetration into matter than z. B. have hadrons and electrons.

The shower development is determined by the hadronic interaction length. It behaves similarly to the radiation length for electromagnetic showers, but is i. A. significantly larger. In addition, strong fluctuations in the energy loss compared to the electromagnetic case are characteristic of a hadronic cascade.

literature

• J. Blümer, R. Engel, JR Hörandel: "Cosmic rays from the knee to the highest energies", Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics Vol. 63, 2009.