Abstract The origin and nature of the cosmic rays is still uncertain. However, a big progress has been achieved in recent years due to the good quality data provided by current and recent cosmic-rays observatories. The cosmic ray flux decreases very fast with energy in such a way that for energies ≳ 10 15 eV, the study of these very energetic particles is performed by using ground based detectors. These detectors are able to detect the atmospheric air showers generated by the cosmic rays as a consequence of their interactions with the molecules of the Earth’s atmosphere. One of the most important observables that can help to understand the origin of the cosmic rays is the composition profile as a function of primary energy. Since the primary particle cannot be observed directly, its chemical composition has to be inferred from parameters of the showers that are very sensitive to the primary mass. The two parameters more sensitive to the composition of the primary are the atmospheric depth of the shower maximum and the muon content of the showers. Past and current cosmic-rays observatories have been using muon counters with the main purpose of measuring the muon content of the showers. Motivated by this fact, in this work we study in detail the estimation of the number of muons that hit a muon counter, which is limited by the number of segments of the counters and by the pile-up effect. We consider as study cases muon counters with segmentation corresponding to the underground muon detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory that are currently taking data, and the one corresponding to the muon counters of the AGASA Observatory, which stopped taking data in 2004.

中文翻译：

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用μ子计数器估计μ子的数量

摘要 宇宙射线的起源和性质仍是不确定的。然而，由于当前和最近的宇宙射线天文台提供的高质量数据，近年来取得了重大进展。宇宙射线通量随能量下降的速度非常快，对于 ≳ 10 15 eV 的能量，可以使用地面探测器对这些高能粒子进行研究。这些探测器能够探测到宇宙射线与地球大气分子相互作用而产生的大气气流。可以帮助理解宇宙射线起源的最重要的观测数据之一是作为一次能量函数的成分分布。由于不能直接观察初级粒子，它的化学成分必须从对原始质量非常敏感的阵雨参数中推断出来。对主成分更敏感的两个参数是流星雨最大值的大气深度和流星雨的介子含量。过去和现在的宇宙射线天文台一直在使用介子计数器，主要目的是测量阵雨的介子含量。受这一事实的启发，在这项工作中，我们详细研究了撞击μ子计数器的μ子数量的估计，这受到计数器段数和堆积效应的限制。我们将μ子计数器作为研究案例，其分段对应于目前正在获取数据的皮埃尔奥格天文台地下μ子探测器，