Cosmic ray mass composition at the knee using azimuthal fluctuations of air shower particles detected at ground by the KASCADE experiment

Abstract: The presence of hadronic sub-showers causes azimuthal non-uniformity in the particle distributions on the ground in vertical air showers. The $LCm$ parameter, which quantifies the non-uniformity of the signal recorded in detectors located at a given distance on a ring around the shower axis, has been successfully introduced as a gamma/hadron discriminator at PeV energies \cite{Conceicao:2022lkc}. In this work, we demonstrate that the $LCm$ parameter can effectively serve as a mass composition discriminator in experiments that employ a compact array of detectors, like KASCADE. We reconstruct the $LCm$ parameter distributions in the energy range $\lg(E/\rm eV) = [15.0 \text{ - } 16.0]$ using measurements from the KASCADE experiment, with intervals of $\lg(E/\rm eV) = 0.2$, which are then fitted with MC templates for five primary nuclei species p, He, C, Si, and Fe considering three hadronic interaction models: QGSjet-II-04, EPOS-LHC and SIBYLL 2.3d. We find that the $LCm$ parameter exhibits minimal dependence on the specific hadronic interaction model considered. The reconstructed fractions of individual species demonstrate a linear decrease in the abundance of protons and He nuclei with increasing energy, while the heavier components become prevalent above the \textit{knee} as predicted by all three hadronic interaction models. Our findings indicate that the abundance of particle types as a function of energy aligns with different astrophysical models that link the \textit{knee} to the acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays within the Galaxy. Furthermore, they also demonstrate excellent agreement with three more recent data-driven astrophysical models. These findings suggest that the $LCm$ parameter could be a valuable tool for forthcoming measurements of the LHAASO experiment to enhance our knowledge about the origin and acceleration mechanisms of cosmic rays.