33 RD I NTERNATIONAL C OSMIC R AY C ONFERENCE , R IO DE JANEIRO 2013

T HE A STROPARTICLE P HYSICS C ONFERENCE

Probing air-shower physics by Cherenkov effects in radio emission

O LAF S CHOLTEN1 , K RIJN D. DE V RIES2,4 , K LAUS W ERNER3 .
1 KVI, University of Groningen, 9747 AA, Groningen, The Netherlands
2 Brussel
3 SUBATECH, University of Nantes – IN2P3/CNRS– EMN, Nantes, France
4
now at: Institute of Physics 4.

scholten@kvi.nl

Abstract: The last decade has seen a rapid progress in measuring as well as theoretical modeling radio-wave
emission from cosmic-ray-induced air showers. The main mechanisms are now known to be the geomagnetic
emission due to deflection of electrons and positrons in Earth’s magnetic field and the charge-excess emission due
to a net electron excess in the air shower front. Recently it was shown that Cherenkov effects play an important
role in the radio emission from air showers. Here we show the importance of these effects to extract quantitatively
the position of the shower maximum from the radio signal, which is a sensitive measure for the mass of the initial
cosmic ray.

Keywords: Radio detection, Air showers, Cosmic rays, Coherent radio emission, Geomagnetic Cherenkov
radiation, Mass determination.

1 Introduction
In several recent experiments (LOPES [1, 2], CO-
DALEMA [3, 4]) it was shown that radio emission can
be used as a new complementary technique for measuring
cosmic-ray-induced air showers. These in turn have trig-
gered several new experiments at the Pierre Auger Observa-
tory [5, 6, 7, 8], and LOFAR [9]. Already in the early days
of cosmic-ray radio-detection the basic emission mecha-
nisms were suggested [10] but recent years have seen a
rapid convergence between microscopic models, such as
ZHAires [12] and CoReas [14], and macroscopic ones such
as MGMR [11], SELFAS [13], and EVA [15], leading to a
consistent picture [17, 16].
In a Microscopic approach the tracks of the individual
electrons are followed and the emitted radiation of each
is summed to yield the total radiation of the extensive air
shower. In the alternative, Macroscopic, approach the veloc-
ity distribution of the electrons is summed locally to yield
the macroscopic charge and current density distribution
in the shower. The main advantage of a macroscopic ap-
proach is that it clearly indicates the aspects of the shower
dynamics that are responsible for certain features of the
detected radio signal. The macroscopic approach requires
a parametrization of the position and time dependence of
the four-currents in the shower which can be performed at
various levels of sophistication. In the following we use the
Macroscopic approach. Since radio emission is basically
governed by wave mechanics any features in the frequency
spectrum of the pulse are directly related to the geometry
and the critical length scales in the distribution of the parti-
cles in the shower [18].
In [19] it was shown that even though the deviation
of the index of refraction from unity, the refractivity, is
small (O(10−3 )), this deviation gives rise to Cherenkov
effects. The importance of these effects were discussed
in [12, 14, 20, 21] for a simplified shower geometry, where
the LDF was shown to have a distinct peak. In [15] we
showed the first results of the EVA-code based on realistic
charge and current distributions in the air shower which are
obtained from Monte-Carlo simulations.
Here we show that due to Cherenkov effects it is possible
to accurately extract from the radio signal the position
where the shower profile reaches its maximum. This is
closely related to the mass of the initial cosmic ray. In
addition Cherenkov effects have a large effect on the relative
magnitude of the charge-excess emission with respect to
the geomagnetic emission. The calculations presented are
done using the EVA [15] simulations to which we give a
short introduction.
2 The Macroscopic model
Particles in the cosmic-ray shower move through the mag-
netic field of Earth with the light velocity c. The lighter
ones, electrons and positrons, will receive a substantial ac-
celeration due to the action of the Lorentz force. This ac-
celeration is counteracted by the collisions with the am-
bient air molecules and results in an (air-pressure depen-
dent) drift velocity with opposite directions for electrons
and positrons, vd ≈ 0.023 c. As a result a net electric current
develops which is proportional to the number of particles
in the shower and oriented in the direction of the Lorentz
force, x̂ = −~v × ~B, where ~v is the direction of the original
cosmic ray and ~B is the Earth magnetic field. This varying
current is responsible for -so called- geomagnetic radiation
which is polarized along the direction of the emitting cur-
rent, x̂.
In addition to the electric current there is also a net charge
excess in the shower due to the knock-out of electrons
from air molecules by elastic positron-electron collisions
and Compton scattering. In shower simulations the charge
excess is approximately equal to 20% of the number of
particles and is thus substantial, and, equally important,
varies with shower height z (the distance, measured along
the shower, to the point of impact on Earth). Because of
this variation there is also charge-excess radiation which
 Cherenkov effects
33 RD I NTERNATIONAL C OSMIC R AY C ONFERENCE , R IO DE JANEIRO 2013

is radially polarized and as such distinguishable from

geomagnetic radiation [22, 23, 24, 25, 26].
The treatment of Cherenkov effects needs special care 8000
due to a square-root divergence in the expression. By = 0 deg
7000 30-80 MHz
making use of the finite extent of the particle distributions 120-200 MHz
in the shower a non-singular expression is obtained by 6000
200-500 MHz

P( V²/m²)/BW(MHz)
safely integrating the square-root divergence over the finite 500-1000 MHz
1000-2000 MHz
extent of the charge and current distributions. Due to the 5000
small refractivity of air the Cherenkov angle is small,
typically of the order of 1 degree, and dependent on air 4000

density. To understand the ground-pattern from Cherenkov 3000

radiation is should be realized that in principle Cherenkov
radiation is emitted from any part of the shower but this 2000
arrives at different distances from the core. If emitted from
1000
the part near the ground it is observed at short distances
from the core, if from larger heights it is observed at 0
greater distances. The fact that beyond a certain distance 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Cherenkov emission can not be observed anymore is related d(m)
to the dependence of the refractivity on air density. The
strength of the Cherenkov radiation at a certain distance
from the shower core is directly related to the current Fig. 1: The signal power as function of the distance to the
density at the emission height which makes this a very core in different frequency bands. The quoted results are
sensitive measure to determine the position of the shower for a 1017 eV shower induced by a proton primary particle
maximum Xmax (g/cm2 ). Care should be taken with the moving perpendicular to Earth’s surface.
fact that the maximum charge-excess current may occur
at a different height as the maximum geomagnetic current.
Since the polarization of Cherenkov radiation is determined and Dale. To test the applicability of Eq. (1) in realistic cases
by the same mechanisms that determine the polarization we simulated a set of 100 showers with a 1017 eV proton
of the normal emission, also for Cherenkov radiation the as primary shower-inducing particle as well as a set of 20
polarization may be used to unravel geomagnetic and charge showers with iron as a primary. The cosmic ray is taken
excess. perpendicular to Earth’s surface. For each we determine
The Lateral Distribution function (LDF) for signal power the distance to the shower core, d p , where the maximum of
in various frequency bands is shown in Fig. 1 for a vertical the power in a certain frequency band occurs as well as the
proton induced shower. The LDF strongly depends on fre- ||
position of the shower maximum, xm , which, through the
quency. At the highest frequency the only coherent contribu- air-density profile, is directly related to Xmax . In Fig. 2, we
tion to the signal is created by Cherenkov radiation since the plot Xmax as a function of d p . Showers for which d p is less
typical length scale, the pancake thickness near the core, is than 30 meters have been omitted from the analysis.
extremely small [15]. At lower frequencies the Cherenkov
radiation still contributes, but the dominant component is
given by the ‘normal’ varying current radiation where the
projection of the longitudinal shower development along
the line of sight is the determining length scale. The power 850
proton
is strongest close to the shower axis. It is interesting to see iron
800
that in the 120 − 200 MHz band, Cherenkov emission and 30-80 MHz
120-200 MHz
normal emission compete with each other giving rise to a 750 200-500 MHz
two peak structure. 500-1000 MHz
Xmax(g/cm )
2

1000-2000 MHz
700

3 Determining Xmax from the radio signal 650

For an index of refraction equal to unity it has been shown
600
that one can distinguish between different shower-inducing
primary particles [23, 27] by calculating a ratio of signal 550
strengths at different distanced from the shower core. Here
we show that also in the presence of Cherenkov emission 500
the earlier method still applies, but for higher frequencies 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
there is an alternative that yields accurate results for Xmax . dp(m)
p In [28], it was noticed that the observer position d =
(x⊥1 )2 + (x⊥2 )2 , corresponding to the Cherenkov angle,
can be linked to the emission height by, Fig. 2: The value of Xmax (g/cm2 ) as a function of d p (m)
for different frequency bands for 100 proton (circles) and
|| 20 iron (squares) induced showers.
p
dc = n2 β 2 − 1 xc , (1)
for a constant index of refraction n. In a more realistic From Fig. 2 it can be seen that Xmax varies almost linearly
model, the index of refraction depends on the air density and with d p ,
thus atmospheric height as given by the law of Gladstone Xmax = a + b · d p . (2)
 Cherenkov effects
33 RD I NTERNATIONAL C OSMIC R AY C ONFERENCE , R IO DE JANEIRO 2013

Such a linear dependence is sufficient to extract Xmax with

an accuracy of 10−15 g/cm2 from the determined values of
d p for the higher frequency bands (> 200 MHz). The linear 850
dependence is independent of energy as shown in Fig. 3
for the 200-500 MHz band for three different energies of 800
1017 , 1018 , and 1019 eV. For each energy a set of 20 proton-
induced and 20 iron-induced are calculated. 750

Xmax(g/cm )
2
700

650
30-80 MHz
750
proton
600 iron
17
700 E=10 eV
18
550 E=10 eV
19
E=10 eV
650 Fit
Xmax(g/cm )
2

500
-3 -2
5 10 2 5 10 2
600 30-80
Q 200/100

550 200-500 MHz

proton Fig. 4: The value of Xmax (g/cm2 ) as a function Q30−80
300/100
iron
500 17
E=10 eV defined by Eq. (3) for the 30-80 MHz band. For three
18
E=10 eV
19 different energies, 1017 eV, 1018 eV, and 1019 eV, a set of
E=10 eV
450 20 proton and 20 iron induced showers has been simulated.
30 40 50 60 70 80 90
The line shows a fit with α = 161 g/cm2 and η = 88 g/cm2
dp(m) which has a standard deviation of 14.4 g/cm2 .

Fig. 3: The value of Xmax (g/cm2 ) as a function d p (m) in

the 200-500 MHz band. The line shows the fit using Eq. (2)
with a = 916 g/cm2 and b = 4.6 g/cm2 /m resulting is a
standard deviation of 14.2 g/cm2 .
For the low frequency bands (< 200 MHz), the sensitivity
to Xmax is small, as is evident from Fig. 2. As a result of
the competition between Cherenkov and normal emission a
two peak structure is seen in Fig. 1 for the 120 − 200 MHz
band. This results in a jump in Xmax as a function of distance
for this band band. For this more complicated situation
we follow the approach proposed earlier [23, 27] where
in Fig. 4 we plot Xmax as a function of Q30−80
300/100 , defined as
PBW (µV 2 /m2 /MHz; d = d2 m)
QBW
d2/d1 =
PBW (µV 2 /m2 /MHz; d = d1 m)
the ratio of power in a certain frequency and observed at
two distances, d = d2 m and d = d1 m from the shower
axis. One of the simulated showers where Xmax lies very
close to Earth’s surface has been excluded from the analysis.
The results show a clear logarithmic dependence which can
be parameterized as
Xmax = α − η log(QBW
d2/d1 ),
with an accuracy of ∼ 10 − 15 g/cm2 . This construction
emphasizes the importance of shower geometry. For two
showers that have the same profile but just differ in energy
the LDF will will only differ in an overall scale factor. This
scale factor is divided out by considering the power-ratio
and this thus focusses on the shower profile.
4 Conclusions
We have shown that Cherenkov effects due to a finite re-
fractivity of the atmosphere strongly modify the structure
of the lateral distribution of radio signal strength. For the
high-frequency bands (> 200 MHz), it is shown that the
distance with respect to the shower core where the signal
power shows a maximum can be linked to Xmax with an
accuracy of 10 − 15 g/cm2 . For the low frequency bands
(< 200 MHz), a power ratio can be defined which corre-
lates to Xmax with a similar accuracy of 10 − 15 g/cm2 . The
fact that different energies show the same distance depen-
dence shows that shower geometry is the determining fac-
tor and thus that the results are not dependent on the par-
ticular model that is used. These values are obtained for a
simplified geometry of vertical air showers, and instrumen-
tal errors have not been included into the analysis. In com-
parison, the Fluorescence detection technique employed at
the Pierre Auger Observatory [29], determines the shower
, (3) maximum with an approximate accuracy of 20 g/cm2 .
This work is part of the research program of the ’Sticht-
ing voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM)’,
which is financially supported by the ’Nederlandse Organ-
isatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)’.
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